HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A street gang member convicted of fatally shooting an Amarillo couple during a botched beer theft at their grocery store more than a dozen years ago was executed Thursday evening.

Ryan Dickson, 30, spoke rapidly when asked if he had anything to say, expressing love to his family and apologizing to the relatives of his victims. No witnesses from his family or the victims' family attended the execution.

"I am sorry for what I did, and I take responsibility for what I did," said Mr. Dickson, the 13th prisoner to be executed this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.

He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m., eight minutes after the lethal drugs began running through his veins.

Mr. Dickson had frequent run-ins with the law as a juvenile, including burglary and assault arrests, was on probation at age 9 for stealing bikes and served time with the Texas Youth Commission.

He was just two weeks past his 18th birthday when he was arrested in the double homicide – hours after the bodies of Carmelo Surace, 61, and his wife, Marie, 60, were found by a customer at their store.

Police found a witness who recognized four young people running from the store on Nov. 27, 1994, as being from the neighborhood. Mr. Dickson, his 14-year-old brother, Dane, and two friends soon were taken into custody.

Prosecutors said Mr. Dickson told authorities he hoped the killing would earn him a teardrop tattoo to impress his colleagues in a gang known as the Varrio 16 Locos.

Armed with a .22-caliber sawed-off rifle, he went inside the Suraces' store. His brother stood guard at the door. Two other friends waited outside.

He later said that Carmelo Surace must have spotted the weapon under his jacket, tried to wrest it away and was shot in the fight.

"I didn't go in there and pull a gun and start shooting people," he said in a recent interview from death row in Livingston.

He also insisted Marie Surace was shot by accident as she reached under a counter for a gun. But prosecutors said Mrs. Surace was on her knees with a phone in her hand when she was shot.

At least nine Texas inmates have execution dates in the coming months.