Texas court spares man who killed girl, 11, from execution

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Texas’ top criminal appeals court has ordered a man convicted of killing an 11-year-old Fort Worth girl be removed from the state’s death row. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday that Juan Segundo does not qualify for execution because of intellectual disability under a recent Supreme Court standard. The appeals court reformed his death sentence to life imprisonment with parole possible, the only alternative sentence for capital murder available at Segundo’s 2006 sentencing by a Tarrant County jury. The jury found Segundo guilty of the rape and strangulation murder of Vanessa Villa.