USA - Texas. Curtis Moore has been put to death in the nation's 1st execution of the year.

Curtis Moore has been put to death in the nation's 1st execution of the year. Curtis Moore, 40, black, was condemned for the November 1995 fatal shootings of Roderick Moore, 24, who was not related to him, and LaTanya Boone, 21. That same night, firefighters summoned to put out a car fire found Darrel Hoyle, 21, and Henry Truevillian Jr., 20, shot and burned. Hoyle survived and helped lead police to the arrest of Moore and his nephew, Anthony Moore, then 17. Moore blamed his nephew, who pleaded guilty to 2 counts of murder in exchange for 2 life prison terms, for the slayings and contended he tried to rescue the victims from the burning car. But he acknowledged holding them at gunpoint and ordering them hogtied and stuffed into the trunk of the car. Moore is the 1st of 6 prisoners scheduled to die this month in Texas. Moore becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, and the 424th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Dec. 7, 1982. Moore becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1137th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.