A former Army recruiter, who had won three reprieves from the U.S. Supreme Court, was executed Tuesday in Texas for the 2002 rape and murder of a woman.

Cleve Foster, 48, convicted with an accomplice in the shooting death of Nyaneur Pal, a 30-year-old Sudanese immigrant, had asked the U.S. high court for a fourth stay of execution but the court denied the request Tuesday, wire agencies reported.

Foster’s attorneys argued he was innocent in the murder that took place 10 years ago and that he had deficient legal help. He was also charged, but never tried, for the rape and murder of another woman, Rachel Urnosky, in Fort Worth a few months prior to Pal’s death.

Foster's accomplice in the murder, Shelton Ward, died of brain cancer while awaiting execution in 2010.

Foster had maintained that Ward acted alone and that contact between him and the victim was consensual.

Pal's body was found with a gunshot wound to the head on the Valentine’s Day of 2002.

Foster was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m. local time (2343 GMT) at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, criminal justice spokesman Jason Clark said, as reported by Reuters.

Foster’s third reprieve last year, following the two in January and April the same year, was granted shortly before he was to be put to death by lethal injection.