WASHINGTON (AFP) - A 52-year-old man sentenced to die for a 1991 murder was executed late Wednesday by lethal injection, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Thursday. Stephen Moody, who spent more than 16 years on death row, asked his lawyers to abandon any appeals to block the execution. Warden, pull the trigger Moody cried after he was strapped to the execution table and said his final words, corrections officials said in a statement. He was pronounced dead at 2328 GMT Wednesday. It is the 17th execution in the southern US state of Texas in the year, where 440 people have been executed since the death penalty was reestablished in 1976. Texas is scheduled to execute three other people in September. There are currently 358 inmates on death row in Texas. Thirty-eight men have been executed in the United States in 2009.