CHICAGO – The Trump administration is planning an unprecedented five more federal executions before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, starting with a Texas street-gang member set to be put to death Thursday for his role in the 1999 slayings of an Iowa religious couple whose bodies he burned in the trunk of their car.Brandon Bernard was 18 when he and four other teenagers abducted and robbed Todd and Stacie Bagley on their way from a Sunday service in Killeen, Texas.
He would be the ninth federal inmate put to death since July, when President Donald Trump ended a 17-year hiatus in federal executions.If Bernard, now 40, receives a lethal injection as planned at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, it would be a rare execution.