Texecution!

Don't mess with Texas. And certainly don't molest and murder a teenager there.

Humberto Leal, a Mexican national, was executed today for the "rape-slaying" (AP's term, which is awesome) of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda. Her nude body was found hours after she left a San Antonio street party with Leal in 1994, and she had been bludgeoned with a chunk of asphalt.

Before his lethal injection, Leal repeatedly said he was sorry and accepted responsibility. "I have hurt a lot of people... I take full blame for everything. I am sorry for what I did," but then he ruined it as the drugs began taking effect by shouting, "Viva Mexico!"

His attorneys made citizenship a key element of their defense effort to win a stay of execution, saying the police never told him following his arrest that he could seek legal assistance from the Mexican government under an international treaty. Yeah, Mexico has such a good handle on their cartel war that they are going to worry about the criminal acts of one of it's citizens abroad.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down a last minute appeal supported by both Mexico and the White House, which would create time for Congress to consider a law requiring court review in cases where condemned foreign nationals did not receive help from their consulates. I don't know why they would claim that this case would affect Americans detained in other countries, since foreigners are subject to sovereign laws. But the Supreme Court did not believe executing Leal would cause grave international consequences, and did not believe "that it is ever appropriate to stay a lower court judgment in light of unenacted legislation."

What a shame he didn't get to have the consulate loophole to keep him alive, which is why I like tho quotes from opposite camps. Leal's uncle criticized the U.S. justice system after the execution and said, "There is a God who makes us all pay", which did not have the same ironic impact for him. The other comes from Sauceda's mother, who correctly noted, "A technicality doesn't give anyone a right to come to this country and rape, torture and murder anyone."

Ankle Holsters Don't Chafe

Governor Rick Perry is just a regular guy. He likes to exercise and go jogging. With a .380 Ruger.

The governor claims to carry it with him because he is afraid of snakes. But at least once, it was a bad time to be a coyote. Perry told the AP the other day that he needed just one shot from the laser-sighted pistol he "sometimes" carries while jogging to take down a coyote that menaced his puppy during a February run near Austin. His Ruger — which was loaded with hollow-point bullets (because, well, why not?) — came in handy when a coyote came out of the brush toward his daughter's Labrador retriever.

This story could only be from Texas, right?

Next Time Just Make A Sandwich

A woman charged with murdering her 3 1/2-week-old son used a knife and two swords to dismember the child and ate parts of his body, including his brain, before stabbing herself in the torso and slicing her own throat, police said regarding the feast incident which occurred early yesterday morning.

Otty Sanchez (33), is charged with capital murder in the death of her infant son, Scott Wesley Buchholtz-Sanchez. She was recovering from her wounds at a hospital, and was being held on $1 million bail. Otty Sanchez's sister and her sister's two young children were also in the house, but none were harmed. Or apparently hungry.

Otty Sanchez's aunt, Gloria Sanchez, said her niece had been "in and out" of a psychiatric ward, and that the hospital called several months ago looking to check up on her. She did not elaborate on the nature of her niece's health problems, and certainly said nothing about why she had a couple of swords. "Otty didn't mean to do that. She was not in her right mind." No shit. She didn't even make any side dishes.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said the attack occurred a week after the child's father moved out. Hmmm, smells like motive, unless...police said Sanchez told them the devil told her to kill her son and that she was hearing voices. Oh, you old standby excuse! McManus, who appeared uncomfortable as he addressed reporters, said Sanchez apparently ate the child's brain and some other body parts. She also decapitated the infant, tore off his face and chewed off three of his toes before stabbing herself. Sorry, but that doesn't sound like the devil I know...

"It's too heinous for me to describe it any further," McManus said, and then horked a large coffee and couple of doughnuts. He described the crime scene as so grisly that police officers barely spoke to each other while looking through the house. Officers called to Sanchez's house at about 5 a.m. found her sitting on the couch screaming "I killed my baby! I killed my baby!" They found the boy's body in a bedroom. "It was a spontaneous utterance," McManus said, but don't think that will make a difference in the state of Texas. They'll give you the death penalty for admitting you jaywalked. Police said Sanchez did not have an attorney, and they declined to identify family members who might speak on her behalf, as if there are any at all.

Neighbor Luis Yanez (23) said his kids went to school with one of the small children who lived at the house. He said he often saw a woman playing outside with the children but didn't know whether it was Otty. "Why would you do that to your baby?" said Yanez, a tire technician. "It brings chills to you. They can't defend themselves." Because eating children is okay if they're bigger and can defend themselves.

Investigators are looking into Sanchez's mental health history to see if there was anything "significant," like being raped by the devil or maybe attending the same school as the devil as a child, and whether postpartum difficulties could have played a role in the attack. The killing also calls to mind the drowning of five children by their mother in the bathtub of their Houston-area home in 2001. Attorneys for the woman, Andrea Yates, said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her and was trying to save them from hell. A jury found Yates not guilty by reason of insanity and sheer balls in 2006.

Bustin' Mutton

A National Treasure

Poking through antiques stores while traveling through the Texas Panhandle, Bill Waters stumbled across a tattered old ledger book filled with formulas. Not being much for readin', he still recognized the confusing symbols and complicated figures for something that may be important to thinkin' folks. Waters bought it for $200, suspecting he could resell it for five times that. Turns out, his inkling about the book's value was more spot on than he knew, when he eventually discovered the book came from the Waco, Texas drugstore where Dr Pepper was invented and includes a recipe titled "D Peppers Pepsin Bitters." Normally, his gut instinct was only good for locating rest areas on the interstate and expecting rainfall.

"I began feeling like I had a national treasure," said Waters. Yes, a drink formula from century ago for the nation's 6th best selling flavor...I'm surprised Nic Cage hasn't sought it out sooner.

Dr Pepper's manufacturer says the recipe is not the secret formula for the modern day soft drink, but the 8book is expected to sell between $50,000 to $75,000 when it goes up for auction next week. "It probably has specks of the original concoction on its pages," Waters said. He discovered the book, its yellowed pages stained brown on the edges, underneath a wooden medicine bottle crate in a Shamrock antiques store last summer. A couple months after buying it, he took a closer look as he prepared to sell it on eBay. There were several sheets with letterheads hinting at its past, like a page from a prescription pad from a Waco store titled "W.B. Morrison & Co. Old Corner Drug Store." An search revealed Dr Pepper, first served in 1885, was invented at the Old Corner Drug Store in Waco by a pharmacist named Charles Alderton. Wade Morrison was a store owner.

Faded letters on the book's fraying brown cover say "Castles Formulas." John Castles was a partner of Morrison's for a time and was a druggist at that location as early as 1880, said Mary Beth Webster, who (given this economy is surprisingly employed as) collections manager at the Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute in Waco. As he gathered more information, Waters took a slower turn through the book's more than 360 pages, which are filled with formulas for everything from piano polish to a hair restorer to a cough syrup. He eventually spotted the "D Peppers Pepsin Bitters" formula. "It took three or four days before I actually realized what I had there," Waters said. Yep, just a few ingredients set Dr. Pepper apart form caustic polish.

The recipe written in cursive in the ledger book is hard to make out, but ingredients seem to include mandrake root, sweet flag root and syrup. It isn't a recipe for a soft drink, says Greg Artkop, a spokesman for the Dr Pepper Snapple Group. He said it's likely instead a recipe for a bitter digestive that bears the Dr Pepper name. Oh snap! Artkop said the recipe certainly bears no resemblance to any Dr Pepper recipes the company knows of. The drink's 23-flavor blend is a closely guarded secret, only known by three Dr Pepper employees, he said. And upon pain of death would not reveal the secret.

Michael Riley, "chief cataloger and historian" for Heritage Auction Galleries, said they think it's an early recipe for Dr Pepper. "We just feel like it's the earliest version of it," he said. Riley hasn't, however, tested that theory by trying to mix up a batch. Neither has Waters; he's thought about it but would need to find someone to decipher all the handwriting. And then again, nobody wants to drink piano polish or a hair tonic.

Riley said the book was probably started around 1880 and used through the 1890s. It's not known who wrote the Dr Pepper recipe in the book, but they don't think it was the handwriting of Alderton or Morrison. Some of the formulas have Alderton's name after them. At first, Alderton's drink inspired by the smells in the drugstore was called "a Waco." "People would come in and say, 'Shoot me a Waco,'" Riley said. Soon renamed Dr Pepper, the drink caught on and other stores in town began selling it. Eventually, Alderton got out of the Dr Pepper business and Morrison and a man named Robert Lazenby started a bottling company in 1891.