Mario Swain was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Lola Nixon
According to court documents Mario Swain would break into the home of Lola Nixon. The woman would be kidnapped, driven to a remote location where she was beaten and fatally shot
Mario Swain would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Mario Swain would be executed by lethal injection on November 8 2012
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When Was Mario Swain Executed
Mario Swain was executed on November 8 2012
Mario Swain Case
A man described as a fledgling serial killer by prosecutors was put to death Thursday evening for a woman’s slaying during a break-in at her East Texas home a decade ago.
Mario Swain, 33, received lethal injection for killing Lola Nixon, 46, at her home in Longview two days after Christmas in 2002. Evidence showed he threw her body into the trunk of her BMW, drove to a remote area outside of the city about 120 miles east of Dallas and dumped it in the back seat of an abandoned car.
Swain’s attorney, James Volberding, said no late attempts were made in the courts to block the execution, which will be the 13th this year in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state
The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to review the case, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week rejected an appeal that contended a prison expert’s testimony during the sentencing phase of Swain’s 2003 capital murder trial was false and misleading.
Swain declined media interview requests as his execution date neared
Nixon was supposed to go to dinner with friends that Friday night after Christmas but didn’t show up. When she couldn’t be reached the next day, friends called police who found the back door of her home jimmied and blood throughout the place. A neighbor who saw an unfamiliar truck parked on the street the previous night reported that to police and the truck was tracked to Swain.
He initially blamed friends for the burglary, then led police to Nixon’s body. Authorities determined she’d been beaten with a tire iron, stabbed and strangled
The tire iron was recovered from a trash container where Swain said he had thrown it. Evidence showed he used Nixon’s credit cards and gave a piece of her stolen jewelry to a friend. Nixon’s blood was found on Swain’s clothing in the truck, along with her car keys and garage door opener.
According to evidence and testimony at trial, Swain would gather information about women he wanted to rob and then attack them, forcing them to inhale the anesthetic halothane and hitting them over the head with a wrench or shooting them with a stun gun
Lance Larison, a prosecutor at Swain’s trial, called Swain “a serial killer in training.”
“A girlfriend told us he kept a list in notebooks of names and license plates of girls he would follow,” Larison said. “I think he was working up to something.”
It’s not clear if Swain knew Nixon. She managed a Longview telephone call center where Swain once worked.
One of Swain’s trial lawyers, Rick Hagan, said the evidence and vivid testimony from those who said Swain robbed them hindered the defense’s efforts to convince jurors to spare Swain of the death penalty.
