Death Row
Inmate Attacks Chaplain
6-9-2000
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A
death row inmate attacked a 78-year-old volunteer chaplain Friday, severely
cutting the minister's right wrist, authorities said.
William Paul
Westbrook was doing volunteer ministry on death row when he was attacked by Juan
Soria, 33, who is facing execution next month for a 1985 robbery-slaying in Fort
Worth, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said.
''The inmate pulled the chaplain's arm into the cell, tied a sheet
around the arm and pulled the arm into the cell up to the elbow,'' Fitzgerald
said. ''Then he took out two razor blades and started cutting.''
Officers at the Terrell Unit, which houses some 460 condemned men,
responded to the commotion late Friday morning but Soria refused to back off
until they fired gas into the cell.
Westbrook underwent surgery at
Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, 75 miles to the southwest, to repair two
deep cuts to his wrist. The wrist was not nearly severed as first feared,
hospital spokeswoman Beth Sartori said.
The hospital has a unit that
specializes in microsurgery to repair vascular damage to hands and
arms.
