Now I have honestly no idea why he would do this....Anyone have any ideas?


Inmate kills self hours before execution - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

LIVINGSTON, Texas - A death-row inmate slit his own throat with a makeshift knife early Thursday, committing suicide less than 18 hours before he was scheduled to be executed, a prison official said.

Michael Dewayne Johnson, 29, was on death row for the 1995 killing of a convenience store clerk near Waco.

He was in a death-row cell early Thursday when he slashed his own throat with a makeshift blade fashioned from a small piece of metal attached to a wooden stick, said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville.

Prison guards had been checking on Johnson’s welfare every 15 minutes, as is customary, when they found him unresponsive in a pool of blood in his cell, Lyons said. He was taken to a hospital in nearby Livingston, where he was pronounced dead, Lyons said.

Johnson’s execution had been scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday. His last-minute appeal was still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.