A double murder convict was executed in Texas Wednesday, making him the eighth inmate to be put to death in the state this year.
Willie Tyrone Trottie, 45, was found guilty of killing his former common-law wife and her brother during a shooting spree in May 1993 due to a breakup with his girlfriend. In a statement released by the Department of Correction, Trottie was given pentobarbital and was pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m. CDT, around 22 minutes after the lethal dose administration.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeal just 90 minutes before the execution.
Making a final statement, Trottie apologised for the crime. "I love you all," he said, reports the Associated Press. "I'm going home, going to be with the Lord. ... Find it in your hearts to forgive me. I'm sorry."
Trottie's attorneys tried to persuade the court that he was unfairly represented during his trial in 1993. The state argued that Trottie's self-defense claim was previously rejected.
He had confessed to the killing of 24-year-old Barbara Canada and her brother Titus, aged 28, but according to him, he did so because Titus had fired at him first and he was defending him self when Barbara was shot during the struggle. However, several eye witnesses claimed that they saw him going to Barbara with his gun, which shows that he wanted to harm her.
In their last-minute application, the attorneys argued that the pentobarbital drug to be used to execute Trottie was expired and would make him suffer. "It is not in the public interest for the state to be allowed to be deceptive in its efforts to procure lethal injection drugs," the lawyers said in their petition, reports The Los Angeles Times.
Disagreeing with the attorneys, Texas officials said that the drugs were not expired. "The drugs have been tested for potency and defect," Jason Clark, the director of public information for the Department of Criminal Justice told the LA Times. "The drugs have a potency of 108% and were found to have no defects." Clark said Wednesday night that the execution went without any problems.
Trottie was the second inmate to be put to death Wednesday. Earlier that day, murder convict Earl Ringo Jr. was executed in Missouri for killing two people during a 1998 robbery. Texas has executed 516 prisoners since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976.
