In brief: Woman executed for child’s death

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Texas woman convicted of the starvation and torture death of her girlfriend’s 9-year-old son a decade ago was executed Wednesday evening.

Lisa Coleman, 38, received a lethal injection about an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-day appeal to spare her. She was pronounced dead 12 minutes after Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials began administering a lethal dose of pentobarbital.

Coleman became the ninth convicted killer and second woman to receive lethal injection in Texas this year. Nationally, she’s the 15th woman executed since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed the death penalty to resume.

Coleman was condemned for the death of Davontae Williams, whose emaciated body was found in July 2004 at the North Texas apartment Coleman shared with his mother.

American arrested on Korean border

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean border guards arrested an American man who they believe was attempting to swim across a river to rival North Korea, a South Korean defense official said Wednesday.

The man was apprehended Tuesday night while lying on a bank of the Han River in a restricted military area near the border, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The man told investigators that he tried to go to North Korea to meet leader Kim Jong Un, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified government source. It said the man, about age 29, is a computer repairman from Texas who came to South Korea 10 days ago.