A convicted murderer, who turned down a 30-year plea deal, is set to be executed Wednesday evening in Texas.
My San Antonio Express-News reported that Arnold Prieto, 41, will be the first person executed in the state of Texas in 2015. He is set to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. local time.
He was convicted of using a screwdriver and stabbing Rodolfo Rodriguez, 72, his wife, Virginia, 62, and Paula Moran, 90, to death in 1993.
Siblings Jesse and Guadalupe Hernandez were the grandnephews of the slain couple and were also implicated in the murders.
The Associated Press noted that Prieto was offered a 30-year plea deal in exchange for testimony against one of the brothers. Instead, he rejected that offer and received the death penalty.
"There was a way out," recalled his lawyer Michael Bernard. "We just couldn't get there."
Currently, there are no appeals to try and stop or postpone the planned execution.
If it is carried out Prieto will become the 519th person executed in Texas since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated. The state has had more executions than any other U.S. state.