WASHINGTON, DC – A 53-year-old man convicted of the 2001 rape and murder of a teenage girl was executed by lethal injection in the US state of Indiana on Friday, authorities said.
Roy Lee Ward was sentenced to death in 2002 for the murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne at her home in the town of Dale.
Payne was stabbed repeatedly and died of her injuries several hours after the attack.
Ward was arrested at the scene while still holding a knife.
The execution was carried out shortly after midnight (0500 GMT) at a state prison in Michigan City, the Indiana Department of Correction said in a statement.
Ward was the third person put to death in Indiana since the state resumed executions last year after a 15-year hiatus because of difficulties obtaining the lethal drugs used in them.
His last meal included a hamburger, a steak melt, fries, shrimp and breadsticks.
There have now been 35 executions in the United States this year, equalling the number of inmates that were put to death in 2014. AFP
Florida has carried out the most executions with 13, followed by Texas with five and South Carolina and Alabama with four.
Twenty-eight of this year’s executions have been carried out by lethal injection, two by firing squad and four by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate. AFP
