The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to hear an appeal from a Haltom City man condemned to die for raping, beating and strangling a woman he met in a Fort Worth bar in the summer of 2001.
Cary Kerr, 46, was sent to Death Row for killing Pamela Horton, whose body was spotted by a taxi driver on the pavement in the 4700 block of Northeast 28th Street in Haltom City about 2 a.m. on July 12, 2001.
Horton, 34, had been sexually assaulted and manually strangled, authorities testified at Kerr's trial in March 2003. Kerr, who lived a few blocks north on Fincher Road, was arrested at the scene, where officers at first interviewed him as a possible witness.
The high court refused without comment to hear his case.
In unsuccessful previous appeals, Kerr's lawyers said that his indictment was flawed, that instructions to his Tarrant County jury were improper and that the drugs used by Texas to carry out lethal injections are unconstitutionally cruel.
State District Judge Everett Young has not set an execution date.
Testimony at his trial showed Kerr drew attention to himself by asking police questions about Horton's body shortly after it was found on a street near his home. Kerr told authorities he was with Horton at his home but that she was alive when she left. He didn't testify at his trial. His trial lawyer said Horton left after the two had argued and after both had been drinking heavily.
An autopsy showed Horton's blood alcohol level was more than five times the legal driving limit.
Prosecutors said Kerr gave several different accounts to investigators and to emergency medical technicians who responded to a call from a taxi driver who spotted Horton's body lying in the street.
Her purse was found in Kerr's car. One of her shoes and torn pieces of her clothing were recovered from his house. Kerr was arrested on the scene.
DNA evidence indicated he'd had sex with her. Evidence from her wounds also indicated she could have been thrown to the street from a moving vehicle.
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