British wife screams 'I love you' as husband executed in Texas

The British wife of a death row inmate screamed "I love you" before her husband was executed for a fatal shooting he claimed he didn't commit.

James Broadnax, 37, was pronounced dead on Thursday after a dose of lethal injection in Huntsville, around 70 miles north of Houston, Texas.

Broadnax had said prosecutors misused rap lyrics he wrote to secure his death sentence.

His emotional British wife, named in various reports as Tiana Krasniqi, screamed "I love you" before Broadnax stopped breathing.

During the execution, she leaned up to the death chamber window with arms spread and had to be helped out of the prison.

Earlier in the day, the US Supreme Court had denied a request by Broadnax's attorneys to stop his execution.

Broadnax was convicted for the fatal 2008 shootings of two men outside a Dallas music studio.

Prosecutors said he and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, had shot and robbed Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in the parking lot of Butler's recording studio in Garland. Cummings was sentenced to life without parole.

In his final statement, Broadnax protested his innocence but asked for forgiveness from the victims' relatives, some of whom, including the parents of each of the victims, were present.

He said: "I prayed to God for your forgiveness. Despite what you think about me, I hope to God that prayer was answered.

"But no matter what you think about me, Texas got it wrong. I'm innocent. The facts of my case should speak for itself. Period."

As the lethal dose of the sedative, pentobarbital, began, Broadnax urged his supporters to keep fighting, saying "don't give up". He was stopped in the middle of another sentence by a gasp.

He also shook his head briefly and all movement stopped, before he was pronounced dead 21 minutes later.

Prosecutors said he had confessed to the shooting and told reporters during jailhouse interviews that "I pulled the trigger" and that he had no remorse.

In his final appeals, Broadnax's lawyers focused on two issues: that Cummings had recently confessed to being the shooter and that his constitutional rights were violated because prosecutors eliminated potential jurors from his trial on the basis of race.

In a video recently recorded with a view to stopping the execution, Cummings said from prison: "I'm really gonna tell it like it's supposed to be told, that it was me, that I was the killer. I shot Matthew Bullard, Steve Swan."

In an earlier appeal, Broadnax's attorneys had also argued that prosecutors violated his constitutional rights by using rap lyrics he wrote to portray him as a violent and dangerous person in order to secure a death sentence.

Rappers including Travis Scott and Killer Mike had filed briefs at the Supreme Court in support of Broadnax's appeal.

Theresa Butler, Matthew Butler's mother, had asked that the execution proceed.

She wrote in a post on social media: "This so called confession from cummings is just a stall tactic by Broadnax's desperate defense team. Its all a lie."

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Broadnax was the tenth person put to death in the US this year, and the third in Texas, which has historically held more executions than any other state.

According to the Death Penalty Information Centre, there were 24 executions in 2023 and 25 the following year.

Last the year the figure rose to 47.

(c) Sky News 2026: British wife screams 'I love you' as husband executed in Texas