The Nation - News from Nov. 4, 1988

Donald Gene Franklin was executed by lethal injection at the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville for a 1975 sex killing in which he stabbed a San Antonio nurse, left her for dead in a field, then refused after his arrest to help police find the bleeding woman in time to save her life. Franklin, 37, became the ninth person executed in the United States this year, compared with 25 in 1987, the highest number in any single year since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976.