A death row prisoner who admitted to murdering his neighbours has been executed in Texas.
Double murderer Barney Fuller Jr, 58, pleaded guilty to spraying a neighbouring home with gunfire, kicking in the door and killing the married couple who lived there in 2003.
The 58-year-old was pronounced dead at 7.01pm local time at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville after waiving his final appeals.
Reports suggested the killer took an agonising 38 minutes to die as witnesses including the victims’ two children looked on.
When asked for a final statement he said:
“I don’t have anything to say. You can proceed Warden Jones.”
But after officials injected a lethal dose of drugs into his arms, he blurted out: “Hey, you fixin’ to put me to sleep.’”
The killer took a few breaths and started snoring but in less than a minute all movement had stopped.
The 38 minutes it took for him to die is considered longer than normal, with a prison spokesman saying: “Each person is unique in how his body shuts down.”
Fuller was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to capital murder in July 2004.
Last year, Fuller said he was “ready to move on” and begged his lawyers not to prolong his time on death row for appeals.
He wrote to attorney Jason Cassel:
“I do not want to go on living in this hellhole.”
It was the seventh this year in Texas and the 16th in the United States.
