HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - A man convicted of murdering three people during a November 1995 night of robberies in Fort Worth heads to the Texas death chamber in Huntsville Wednesday, January 14, 2009.

Curtis Moore is to be the nation's first execution of 2009. The 40-year-old inmate is the first of six prisoners scheduled to die this month in Texas.

He already made one trip to the Huntsville death house in 2002. But he was returned less than three hours before he could have received lethal injection when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed his mental retardation claims could be reviewed. Justices refused his appeal last October, clearing the way for Wednesday's punishment date.

Moore was condemned for the fatal shootings of 24-year-old Roderick Moore and 21-year-old LaTanya Boone, both of Fort Worth, and 20-year-old Henry Truevillian Jr. of Forest Hill.

Testimony at Curtis Moore's trial showed the shootings culminated a drug ripoff.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)