MILAM

A January execution date has been set for a Rusk County man convicted in the 2008 beating death of his girlfriend’s infant daughter.

Blaine Milam, 28, lost a federal appeal in May and will be executed Jan. 15 in Huntsville, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Robert Hurst.

Milam was found guilty in 2010 in the slaying of 13-month-old Amora Carson at Milam’s trailer in Rusk County. Police said Milam and his girlfriend, Jessica Carson, were trying to perform an exorcism on the child.

In his appeal, Milam’s attorneys had argued that he had deficient legal help at his trial and in earlier appeals and that the trial judge gave jurors faulty instructions.

Milam’s trial was moved about 140 miles south to Montgomery County, outside of Houston, because of extensive publicity in Rusk County.

Carson, a 2008 Longview High School graduate, was convicted in 2011 in her daughter’s death and sentenced to life in prison.

Authorities at the time said the couple killed the child with a hammer, and police found her body riddled with bite marks.

Milam and Carson initially told police that they had left the child unattended in the trailer and someone broke in and attacked her. Carson later admitted that “she was present when (Milam) performed an exorcism of the demons possessing the body of the child.”

The mother also told police that after Milam killed the girl, they drove to Henderson to pawn items to pay for another exorcism.

Milam and Carson were both 18 at the time of the child’s death.