Texas (WBAP/KLIF) – A Texas death row inmate condemned for the 1984 killing of an SMU student has died in prison.
74-year old Donald Andrew Bess died of a heart attack on September first, according to the Dallas Morning News.
20-year-old Angela Samota was murdered in 1984. Bess was brought to justice in the case in 2008 when the National DNA Database matched his DNA to that taken from Samota’s condo .
Samota was a graduate of Dallas’ private Hockaday School for girls and was studying computer science and electrical engineering at SMU when her life was cut short; she had been stabbed in the chest 18 times in her condo. Bess gained entry by asking to use her bathroom and phone.
Bess was out of prison on parole for the 1977 kidnapping and rape of a Houston woman when he killed Samota. He did not have an execution date.
(Copyright 2022 WBAP/KLIF 24/7 News. This report contains material from The Dallas Morning News.)
