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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

State Stitches Up Inmate But Still Plans To Kill Him

Associated Press

A convicted killer tried to cheat the executioner by slashing his throat and wrist in a suicide attempt early Tuesday, a day and a half before he is to be put to death by injection.

David Lee Herman, 39, was taken to a hospital, stitched up and returned to the prison. The execution is to go on as scheduled tonight, said Larry Fitzgerald, spokesman for the state Criminal Justice Department.

The inmate broke apart a prison-issued disposable razor and used the blade to slash himself in his death row cell.

Herman was sentenced to death for a 1989 robbery-murder at an Arlington, Texas, topless club he once had managed. A bookkeeper was killed and two other people were wounded.

Since capital punishment was resumed in Texas in 1982, no other death row inmate has attempted suicide so close to his execution date.

After being returned to the prison, Herman met with a psychiatrist and his mother.

In Oklahoma, an inmate tried to kill himself with an overdose of sedatives in his cell hours before he was to be executed in 1995.

He was rushed to a hospital to have his stomach pumped, then was returned to the prison and executed that night.