'Vampire Killer' Faces Execution In Texas

Pablo Vasquez was found guilty of killing a 12-year-old boy and told police he also drank the victim's blood.

Vasquez's execution would be the 11th in the US this year

The US Supreme Court has denied a petition to block the execution of a Texas man who claimed he drank the blood of his young victim.

Pablo Lucio Vasquez, 38, is due to be executed by lethal injection after 6pm local time on Wednesday for the murder of 12-year-old David Cardenas in 1998.

His execution would be the 11th this year in the US and the sixth in Texas.

But Vasquez's lawyer James Keegan filed the last-minute appeal saying several potential jurors in the murder trial may have been improperly excused because they were either against the death penalty or not comfortable imposing such a judgement.

But Assistant Texas Attorney General Jeremy Greenwell said any exclusion of potential jury members was legally proper, adding that the latest appeal is "nothing more than a meritless attempt to postpone (Vasquez's) execution".

The appeal was the latest in a number of attempts to save Vasquez.

The most recent was a month ago and asserted that Vasquez was mentally ill and, therefore, should not be able to be sentenced to death.

David Cardenas, then 21, had been a friend of Vasquez's  cousin, Andres Rafael Chapa.

Both boys had been at a party in the Texas border town of Donna with Vasquez and others on 18 April, 1998.

Vasquez told police he was drunk and high when voices told him to kill seventh-grader David.

He said he beat him with a pipe and then slit his throat, saying the devil had told him to "take (the head) away from him".

He said Chapa, then 15, had used a shovel in an attempt to help. Chapa pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a 35-year jail term.

Vasquez told detectives he had later lifted David's body, allowing the blood to drip on his face before drinking it, adding in a statement: "Something just told me to drink".

David's body was found missing limbs and nearly decapitated in a vacant field five days after the murder.

Joseph Orendain, the lead trial prosecutor, described the case as "really horrendous", adding: "Did he drink (the blood)? I don't know."