HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A Texas inmate was executed Thursday evening for fatally shooting one of three people he and a partner abducted during a convenience store robbery nearly 11 years ago.

Richard Cobb, 29, didn't deny using a 20-gauge shotgun to kill Kenneth Vandever in an East Texas field where two women also were shot and one was raped. He was convicted of capital murder.

"Life is death, death is life. I hope that someday this absurdity that humanity has come to will come to an end," Cobb said when asked if he had any last words. "Life is too short. I hope anyone that has negative energy towards me will resolve that.

"Life is too short to harbor feelings of hatred and anger. That's it, warden."

---

But that wasn't it.

Just before the lethal drug took effect and at the conclusion of his statement, Cobb twisted his head back, raised it off a pillow placed on the gurney and then toward the warden standing behind him.

"Wow!" the inmate exclaimed in a loud voice. "That is great. That is awesome! Thank you, warden! Thank you (expletive) warden!"

His head fell back on the pillow, and his neck twisted at an odd angle, with his mouth and eyes open.

He remained that way for some 15 minutes before a physician entered the death chamber to examine him and pronounce him dead at 6:27 p.m. CDT. Sixteen minutes had passed since the drug had been injected.

The father, stepmother and stepbrother of the man shot and killed by Cobb were among the witnesses. Also in the viewing area was one of the women who was shot and attacked but survived to testify against Cobb.

"I think justice was served but it doesn't change anything to speak of," the slain man's father, Don Vandever, said after watching Cobb die. "I do think the justice system needs to be more of a deterrent.

"All he did was go to sleep. That's it."

Nikki Daniels, 29, who was raped and shot during the 2002 attack but survived to testify against Cobb, said, "I thought he was going to be remorseful, I thought he was going to be apologetic, was hoping that he was going to address me.

"I saw the same evil person I saw 11 years ago. ... He definitely showed his true colors."

The Associated Press generally does not name victims of sexual assault but Daniels agreed to be identified.

Daniels said Cobb's punishment in the end "was far too easy."

About two hours before the lethal injection, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Cobb to be executed, rejecting a last-day appeal. It was Texas' fourth execution this year.

On Sept. 2, 2002, Kenneth Vandever and the two women were abducted from a store in Rusk, about 120 miles southeast of Dallas, and taken to a field about 10 miles away. All three were shot and left for dead. Vandever, 37, died, but the women managed to get help.

Cobb was 18 at the time of the attack, on probation for auto theft and a high school dropout. Cobb and his partner, Beunka Adams, were arrested in Jacksonville, about 25 miles away, the day after the crime. It was the latest in a series of robberies tied to them.

Cobb testified at his trial he began using drugs at age 12 and turned to robbery to pay off a drug debt.

Adams was executed a year ago this week for his participation in the slaying.

Vandever had frequented the store in Rusk and would do things like take out the trash. An auto accident had left him with the mental capacity of a child.

Cobb's trial attorneys unsuccessfully tried to show Adams forced Cobb to shoot Vandever by threatening Cobb. The survivors of the attack said they never heard such threats, but heard Vandever plead that he needed his medication and scream when he was shot.

"Basically, it was an act of compulsion," Cobb said of the abductions and shootings. He described himself to the AP shortly after arriving on death row in 2004 as "young, dumb and made a mistake."

"I'm guilty of the crime," he said.

He told the Jacksonville Daily Progress last month from prison he didn't want to die "but I'm ready for it."

At least 11 other Texas inmates have executions scheduled for the coming months, including three in May.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Dallas judge has halted the scheduled Tuesday night execution of a Texas woman who would have been the first woman put to death in the U.S. in three years.

The order from state District Judge Larry Mitchell moves the execution of Kimberly McCarthy, 51, to April 3.

McCarthy faced lethal injection for the 1997 beating, stabbing and robbery of a 71-year-old neighbor in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of Dallas. 

Lawyers for McCarthy, who is black, argued that the jury that convicted and sentenced her to death was selected improperly based on race. It was made up of 11 white people and one black person.

The  Dallas County District Attorney's office said it wouldn't appeal the ruling. The DA's office had called the effort a "mere delay" tactic, saying the record didn't support a valid legal claim for discrimination.

---

A Dallas County jury had already found McCarthy, a former nursing home therapist, guilty of the killing when evidence at the punishment phase of her trial tied her to two similar murders a decade earlier.

"Once the jury heard about those other two, we were certainly in a deep hole," recalled McCarthy's lead trial attorney, Doug Parks. Jurors decided McCarthy should die.

Her execution would have been the first since a Virginia inmate, Teresa Lewis, became the 12th woman put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume. In that same time, 1,309 men have been executed.

McCarthy also would have been the first woman executed in Texas in more than eight years and the fourth overall in the state, which executes the most people in the nation — 492 prisoners since capital punishment resumed 30 years ago.

Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics compiled from 1980 through 2008 show women make up about 10 percent of homicide offenders nationwide. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 3,146 people were on the nation's death rows as of last Oct. 1, and only 63 — 2 percent — were women.

Ring cut from living victim
Evidence showed McCarthy, who has exhausted her court appeals, phoned Booth to borrow a cup of sugar, then attacked Booth when she went to retrieve it. Booth was stabbed with a butcher knife, beaten with a large candle holder and robbed of a diamond wedding ring.

"(McCarthy) quite literally took the woman, put her left hand on a chopping block of the kitchen and then used a knife to sever her ring finger while she was still alive," said Greg Davis, the former Dallas County assistant district attorney who prosecuted McCarthy. "She took the ring from the finger that had been severed and continued the attack until she finally killed her."

Prosecutors showed McCarthy stole Booth's Mercedes and drove to Dallas, pawned the ring for $200 and then went to a crack house to buy some cocaine. Evidence also showed she used Booth's credit cards at a liquor store and was carrying Booth's driver's license.

Booth's DNA was found on a 10-inch butcher knife recovered from McCarthy's home. McCarthy was arrested after police found her name on a pawn shop receipt for the ring.

McCarthy was tried twice for Booth's slaying, most recently in 2002. Her first conviction in 1998 was thrown out three years later by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled police violated her rights by using a statement she made to them after asking for a lawyer.

Prosecutors presented DNA and fingerprint evidence that tied McCarthy to similar slayings of two other women in Dallas in December 1988. Maggie Harding, 81, was beaten with a meat tenderizer and stabbed.

Jettie Lucas, 85, was beaten with both sides of a claw hammer and stabbed. McCarthy was indicted but not tried for those slayings. She denied any involvement.

“When the jury saw the other two were equally gruesome, I think it sealed the deal for her," Davis said.

McCarthy is a former wife of Aaron Michaels, founder of the New Black Panther Party, and he testified on her behalf. They had separated before Booth's slaying.

McCarthy declined to speak with reporters as her execution date neared. She's one of 10 women on death row in Texas but the only one with an execution date.

In 1998, Karla Faye Tucker, 38, became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War for a robbery in Houston where two people were killed with a pickax.

At least eight male Texas prisoners have executions scheduled in the coming months.

Related:

Widow asks Pennsylvania governor not to execute husband's killer

Convicted Ohio killer: I'm too obese to be executed

Ohio's governor on Monday commuted the death sentence of convicted murderer Ronald Post, but not because of the obese inmate's claim that he was too large to be executed.

Republican Gov. John Kasich said in a statement that Post's legal representation "did not rise to the level that society has come to expect in death penalty cases." Post will instead spend life in prison with no chance of parole, The Associated Press reported. On Friday, a parole board had recommended that Post's death sentence be commuted to a life term, according to Reuters.

Post, 53, had been scheduled to die Jan. 16 for the 1983 shooting death of Helen Vantz in northern Ohio. The woman worked in an Elyria, Ohio motel Post was robbing, and died after the man shot her twice in the back of the head.

In September of this year, Post's lawyers argued their 480-pound client had difficulty losing weight and claimed he would face a "torturous and lingering death" if executed in January. Post also claimed his weight, vein access, scar tissue, depression and other medical problems could pose severe problems for executioners. However in November, a federal judge dismissed this attempt to stop the lethal injection, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reported.

---

Related: Execution halted in Pennsylvania over suppressed evidence

"Governor Kasich made the right decision by granting clemency to Ronald Post," Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, said in a statement. "The governor carefully examined the totality of mistakes in Mr. Post's case and acted accordingly. Our thoughts remain with the Vantz family."

Kasich told Reuters the clemency "should not be viewed by anyone as diminishing this awful crime or the pain it has caused."

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated at 8:15 p.m. ET : STARKE, Fla. -- A former police officer who murdered nine people during a 1986 crime spree was executed Tuesday after his attorneys' last-minute appeals were rejected.

Manuel Pardo, 56, was pronounced dead at Florida State Prison at 7:47 p.m., about 16 minutes after the lethal injection process began. His attorneys had tried to block the execution by arguing that he was mentally ill, but federal courts declined to intercede. 

Reporters could not hear his final statement because of an apparent malfunction in the death chamber's sound system. A white sheet had been pulled up to his chin and IV lines ran into his left arm. He blinked several times, his eyes moved back and forth and he took several deep breaths. Over the next several minutes the color drained from his face before he was pronounced dead.

---

Pardo spent Tuesday afternoon with eight family and friends and ordered a Cuban-style meal of roasted pork chunks, white rice and red beans, fried plantains with tomato and avocado, topped with olive oil, the Miami Herald reported. For dessert, he had pumpkin pie and Cuban coffee. 

Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

Officials said most of Pardo's victims were involved with drugs. Pardo contended that he was doing the world a favor by killing them over three-month period in early 1986.

"I am a soldier, I accomplished my mission and I humbly ask you to give me the glory of ending my life and not send me to spend the rest of my days in state prison," Pardo told jurors at his 1988 trial.

Ann Howard, a spokeswoman for Florida's Department of Corrections, said that Pardo visited with eight people Tuesday. He also met with the prison chaplain and a Roman Catholic bishop.

Pardo ate a last meal of rice, red beans, roasted pork, plantains, avocado, tomatoes and olive oil. For dessert, he ate pumpkin pie and drank egg nog and Cuban Coffee. Under Department of Corrections rules, the meal's ingredients have to cost $40 or less, be available locally and made in the prison kitchen.

Pardo was dubbed the "Death Row Romeo" after he corresponded with dozens of women and persuaded many to send him money.

Pardo, a former Boy Scout and Navy veteran, began his law enforcement career in the 1970s with the Florida Highway Patrol, graduating at the top of his class at the academy. But he was fired from that agency in 1979 for falsifying traffic tickets. He was soon hired by the police department in Sweetwater, a small city in Miami-Dade County.

Cops gone bad: 'Death Row Romeo' on notorious list

In 1981, Pardo was one of four Sweetwater officers charged with brutality, but the cases were dismissed.

He was fired four years later after he flew to the Bahamas to testify at the trial of a Sweetwater colleague who was accused of drug smuggling. Pardo lied, telling the court they were international undercover agents.

Then over a 92-day period in early 1986, Pardo committed a series of robberies, killing six men and three women. He took photos of the victims and recounted some details in his diary, which was found along with newspaper clippings about the murders. Pardo was linked to the killings after using credit cards stolen from the victims.

Regino Musa, the brother of one of Pardo's victims, said it's difficult to grasp that the execution will finally happen. He and his elderly mother planned to attend. 

"It's about time. It's been so long, you just want to get it over with," said Musa, whose sister, Sara Musa, was killed by Pardo. "I still have nightmares and I don't have words to describe it. I can't believe that it's happening." 

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.

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A condemned Ohio inmate who weighs 480 pounds and has a history of difficulty losing weight argues he would face a "torturous and lingering death" if executed in January.

Ronald Post, who shot and killed a hotel clerk in northern Ohio almost 30 years ago, said his weight, vein access, scar tissue, depression and other medical problems raise the likelihood his executioners would encounter severe problems. He's also so big that the execution gurney might not hold him, lawyers for Post said in federal court papers filed Friday.

"Indeed, given his unique physical and medical condition there is a substantial risk that any attempt to execute him will result in serious physical and psychological pain to him, as well as an execution involving a torturous and lingering death," the filing said.

Post, 53, is scheduled to die Jan. 16 for the 1983 shooting death of Helen Vantz in Elyria. The woman worked in a motel Post was robbing, and died after the man shot her twice in the back of the head.

According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Vantz's son, William, laughed when he first heard about the request, but immediately turned serious.

"I don't care if they have to wheel him in on a tractor-trailer; 30 years is too long," he said, according to The Plain Dealer. "Enough is enough. This is just an excuse to get out of the execution."

A spokeswoman for the prisons department had no comment on the pending litigation.

Post's attorneys also want more time to pursue arguments that claims of a full confession by the inmate to several people have been falsely exaggerated.

If you think we're fat now, wait until 2030

"Post's case is about more than his weight, and his life should be spared for reasons wholly unrelated to his obesity," his federal public defender, Joseph Wilhelm, said in a statement.

Inmates' weight has come up previously in death penalty cases in Ohio and elsewhere.

In 2008, federal courts rejected arguments by condemned double-killer Richard Cooey that he was too obese to die by injection. Cooey's attorneys had argued that prison food and limited opportunities to exercise contributed to a weight problem that would make it difficult for the execution team to find a viable vein for lethal injection.

Cooey, who was 5-foot-7 and weighed 267 pounds, was executed Oct. 14, 2008.

---

In 2007, it took Ohio executioners about two hours to insert IVs into the veins of condemned inmate Christopher Newton, who weighed about 265 pounds. A prison spokeswoman at the time said his size was an issue.

 

 

In 1994 in Washington state, a federal judge upheld the conviction of Mitchell Rupe, but agreed with Rupe's contention that at more than 400 pounds, he was too heavy to hang because of the risk of decapitation. Rupe argued that hanging would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

After numerous court rulings and a third trial, Rupe was eventually sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2006.

Ohio executes inmates with a single dose of pentobarbital, usually injected through the arms.

Medical personnel have had a hard time inserting IVs into Post's arms, according to the court filing. Four years ago, an Ohio State University medical center nurse needed three attempts to insert an IV into Post's left arm, the lawyers wrote.

Post has tried losing weight, but knee and back problems have made it difficult to exercise, according to his court filing.

Post's request for gastric bypass surgery has been denied, he's been encouraged not to walk because he's at risk for falling, and severe depression has contributed to his inability to limit how much he eats, his filing said.

According to The Plain Dealer, Post's attorneys said his weight has yo-yoed for years. At one point, the paper reported, the 6-foot-3 convict lost 150 pounds. While at the Mansfield Correctional Institution, Post "used that prison's exercise bike until it broke under his weight," according to the filing.

Post currently uses a wheelchair at the Franklin Medical Center in Columbus, The Plain Dealer reported.

In an open letter last year, William Vantz said that he’s still waiting for justice to be served for his mother.

“Some have said that since it’s been so long just let [Post] stay in prison for the remainder of his natural life. No!” William Vantz wrote for  the Morning Journal.

"I am as committed to this as the day he took her life. I will never forgive or forget what he took from us. We all have recourse to the law and it’s time he paid his debt to society. It’s way overdue!"

Post's case is unusual, as the man pleaded no contest to the murder charges, The Plain Dealer reported. That means he did not admit to having committed the crime, but chose instead not to challenge the facts presented by the prosecution.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated at 6:30 p.m. ET: A Pennsylvania man on death row for the murder of his alleged sexual abuser failed to win clemency Monday from the state Board of Pardons.

Terrance "Terry" Williams, 46, is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 3. He is on death row at the State Correctional Institute at Greene in Pennsylvania for killing 56-year-old Amos Norwood with a tire iron in Philadelphia in 1984. Williams was 18 years old at the time of the murder. Defense lawyer Victor J. Abreu has said Williams' crimes were mitigated by the sexual abuse he experienced in his childhood. Norwood was allegedly one of his attackers.

After Monday’s hearing, the five-member board of pardons voted 3-2 in favor of clemency, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. However, under state law, a unanimous vote was needed in order to provide a nonbinding recommendation to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett to change the lethal injection to life in prison without parole, the Inquirer reported.

---

The clemency hearing was granted after a petition filed on Sept. 6 called upon Corbett and the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons to stop the execution. The petition included a statement from Norwood's widow, who said, "Several years ago, after much prayer and self-reflection, I found the strength and courage to forgive Terry Williams."

Related: Widow asks Pennsylvania governor not to execute husband's killer

"I do not wish to see Terry Williams executed,” she said in the statement.

On Friday, a Philadelphia judge agreed to hear testimony on the defense's claim that the prosecutor at Williams' 1986 trial withheld evidence from the jury pertaining to the sexual abuse, the Inquirer also reported.

One of Williams' attorneys, Shawn Nolan, said in a statement Monday that they are "deeply disappointed" in the denial for clemency. Nolan added that they will present new evidence on Thursday in court that reveals what the defense says is Williams' motive for the murders: years of sexual abuse.

"We are confident that a thorough review of the facts will make it clear that the jurors in this case did not have accurate and complete information about the crime or Terry Williams," Nolan said.

Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

Williams is also serving a life term for killing 50-year-old Herbert Hamilton when he was 17. Hamilton is another alleged abuser.

"[Williams] was a victim of horrific abuse since he was 6 years old,” Abreu told NBC News earlier this month. "The jury didn’t know that the two men who were killed were abusing him. That information was never presented to the jury."

Williams would be the first person executed in Pennsylvania in 13 years.

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A Pennsylvania widow says she has forgiven the man who killed her husband decades ago and is urging the governor of Pennsylvania to spare the condemned murderer scheduled for execution Oct. 3.

Terrance "Terry" Williams is on death row at the State Correctional Institute at Greene, south of Pittsburgh, for killing Amos Norwood, 56, with a tire iron in Philadelphia in 1984.

Defense lawyer Victor J. Abreu said Williams' crimes were mitigated by a childhood of sexual abuse that later included attacks by Norwood, who abused Williams for years. Williams was 18 at the time of the murder. Williams, now 46, is also serving a life term for killing another alleged abuser, Herbert Hamilton, 50, when he was 17.

---

Norwood's widow, Mamie Norwood, described her husband's killing as "unbearable" but wrote in a letter that "several years ago, after much prayer and self-reflection, I found the strength and courage to forgive Terry Williams."

"I do not wish to see Terry Williams executed,” she said in her letter.

Norwood’s letter was included in a clemency petition filed Thursday with the backing of dozens of lawyers and child welfare advocates who called upon Corbett and the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons to stop Williams' execution.

View petition for executive clemency (Pdf.)

Williams' clemency hearing is scheduled for Sept. 17, Abreu said. 

"He was a victim of horrific abuse since he was 6 years old,” Abreu told NBC News. "The jury didn’t know that the two men who were killed were abusing him. That information was never presented to the jury."

Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

Abreu said he spoke with Williams last week at the maximum security prison near Waynesburg and described their conversations as upbeat. "He remains hopeful that the board and the governor will intervene in this case. He's is optimistic about that," he said.

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OKLAHOMA CITY -- A man convicted of killing his former girlfriend and her two young children in 1993 and burying them in a shallow grave was executed Tuesday in Oklahoma after an unsuccessful last-ditch challenge to the state's three-drug execution protocol.

Michael Hooper, 39, was convicted of driving his ex-girlfriend Cynthia Jarman and her children, Timothy, 3, and Tonya, 5, to a field where he shot each of them twice in the head and then buried them in December 1993.

---

Their bodies were found three days later. Police reports showed that Hooper and Jarman previously had been in a "physically violent relationship," the state attorney general's office said.

Hooper, who was the fourth person executed in Oklahoma this year and the 27th in the United States, was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. local time (9:14 p.m. ET) at the state prison in McAlester, a prison spokesman said.

Death sentence re-imposed in 2004
Hooper was first sentenced to death in 1995, but a federal appeals court overturned the sentence seven years later, ruling that his counsel had been ineffective. He waived his right to be sentenced by a jury at a new hearing. A judge re-imposed the death sentence in 2004.

More on this story from NBC News' Tulsa affiliate KJRH

Hooper had waived his right to appear before the state pardons and parole board, but last week attempted to block his execution by challenging the three-drug protocol used to execute condemned killers in Oklahoma.

He had contended that the protocol used had the potential to cause great pain and was unconstitutional. A federal judge in Oklahoma City and a federal appeals court rejected his challenge.

Earlier this year, Oklahoma was down to one dose of pentobarbital, one of three drugs the state uses to execute condemned inmates. It obtained 20 more doses since then, state prison spokesman Jerry Massie said.

Complete US coverage on NBCNews.com

'Long, arduous journey for all of the families'
The family members of Hooper's three victims released a statement that extended their condolences to Hooper's family.

"This has been a long, arduous journey for all of the families," the statement said. "Tonya, Timmy and Cindy will always be in our hearts and our minds. They will forever be missed and loved deeply."

Hooper requested a variety of fruit along with cranberry juice and coffee for his last meal, Massie said.

"I just want to thank God for such an excellent sendoff," Hooper said before the execution. "Also, my family, for standing by me throughout all this. I appreciate their being there for me through the hardships."

Hooper also asked for forgiveness "for all those that need it -- you know who you are."

"I ask that my spirit be released directly into the hands of Jesus and I'm ready to go. I love you all," he said. 

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The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state's execution law Friday, calling it unconstitutional.

In a split decision, the high court sided with 10 death row inmates who argued that, under Arkansas' constitution, only the Legislature can set execution policy. Legislators in 2009 voted to give that authority to the Department of Correction.

The 2009 law says a death sentence is to be carried out by lethal injection of one or more chemicals that the director of the Department of Correction chooses.

---

Death row inmate Jack Harold Jones Jr. sued the head of the correction department in 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the law. Nine other inmates have since joined the suit, asking that the law be struck down.

The state, meanwhile, asked the court to free up several executions it halted because of this lawsuit.

It wasn't immediately clear what the court's ruling will mean for the 40 men on death row in Arkansas. There aren't any pending executions, and the state hasn't put anyone to death since 2005, in part because of legal challenges like this one.

Three Arkansas inmates who were scheduled to be put to death last summer were spared by the state Supreme Court almost exactly a year ago. Jason Farrell McGehee, Bruce Earl Ward, and Marcel Wayne Williams, all of whom are plaintiffs in the lethal injection lawsuit, received stays of executions from the high court on June 23, 2011, according to ArkansasNews.com.

Josh Lee, an attorney for the death row inmates who challenged the law, declined to comment Friday.

During oral arguments last week, Lee said the state would have two options if the court found the law unconstitutional.

"The Legislature could either choose to stick with the 1983 statute, which everybody concedes is constitutional, or the Legislature could decide we want to amend it," Lee said last week.

The state adopted lethal injection as its method of capital punishment in 1983. There have been legal challenges to the way the state kills its condemned prisoners since then. In 2009, in the midst of a legal battle over lethal injection, the state Legislature passed the law that the court struck down Friday.

Joseph Cordi, an attorney for the state, told the Supreme Court last week that he thought the state would be left with the earlier law if the court struck down the entire statute.

Part of the 2009 law also says that in the event it's found unconstitutional, death sentences will be carried out by electrocution.

"That would be up for the lawyers to untangle and figure out what it means, but that's a possibility," prisons spokeswoman Dina Tyler said.

Since the reinstatement of capital punishment by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, Arkansas has been the only state to ever conduct three executions on the same night, according to The Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization. Triple executions were done twice in Arkansas's history: first on Aug. 3, 1994, under Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, and then again on Jan. 8, 1997, under Gov. Mike Huckabee, records on DeathPenaltyInfo.org show.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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PARCHMAN, Miss. -- A Mississippi man convicted of killing his four young nieces and nephews in a 1990 stabbing rampage was executed Tuesday, despite pleas from his two sisters to spare the brother who killed their children.

Henry "Curtis" Jackson Jr. was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. CDT (7:13 p.m. ET) Tuesday after receiving an injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, officials said.

---

Clad in a red prison jumpsuit as he lay strapped to a gurney, Jackson was asked if he wanted to make a statement.

"No, I don't," he responded as family members sat somberly in a nearby witness room.

Jackson's sister, Glenda Kuyoro, stifled a sob when she walked into the witness room earlier and saw her brother on the gurney. Jackson's eyes were closed when the witnesses arrived and he never looked in the direction of his family.

Earlier, the 47-year-old inmate had spent the day receiving relatives, including one of the sisters whose two children were slain and who survived the stabbing attack. The slain children ranged from 2 to 5 and were killed as Jackson reportedly was trying to steal his mother's safe while she was away at church, court records showed.

Jackson was the fourth person executed this year in the state and the 19th person executed in the nation. 

He did not request a last meal and ate none of the standard dinner offered to him, corrections officials said. He also declined a sedative ahead of the execution. 

Clemency denied
Late Tuesday afternoon, Republican Gov. Phil Bryant declined to stop the execution though he said he was "deeply touched" by requests for clemency from the sisters and his brother-in-law.

In Mississippi, the governor has the sole authority to grant clemency and can also commute death sentences to life in prison.

"There is no question that Mr. Jackson committed these heinous crimes, and there is no clear and convincing evidence that compels me to grant clemency," Bryant said.

His statement added: "One of these sisters was a stabbing victim, and both of the sisters are mothers of the murdered children. However, as governor, I have the duty to see that justice is carried out."

Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said at a penitentiary briefing earlier Tuesday that the inmate acknowledged the crime and was talkative as he received relatives. Visitors included his sister Regina Jackson, who was stabbed five times and survived the attack that killed her two daughters and two nephews.

Regina Jackson had met with the governor Monday and pleaded for her brother's life. She also wrote Bryant a letter last month saying she "just can't take any more killing."

"As a mother who lost two babies, all I'm asking is that you not make me go through the killing of my brother," she wrote.

'I forgave my brother'
Kuyoro and her husband, Andrew, also had asked Bryant to spare the inmate in a letter dated May 15.

"We are the victims in this case, and we are begging you not to let Curtis be killed. You can keep him in Parchman forever, but please don't put our family through this horrible execution," the Kuyoros had written earlier.

After the execution Regina Jackson, who was one of the witnesses, said: "I forgave my brother. I love my brother ... God says we got to forgive in order for Him to forgive us."

The attack took place Nov. 1, 1990, at Jackson's mother's home in the Delta region.

The mother was at church that day, and Regina Jackson was there with her two daughters and four nieces and nephews. Her two daughters and two nephews were stabbed to death, records showed. Another niece was so severely injured that she was a paraplegic until her recent death.

Jackson has said he doesn't remember stabbing the children, but there was testimony at his September 1991 trial that he cut the phone line before going in the house, then demanded money and began the attack, according to the court record.

Regina Jackson testified at trial that she lapsed in and out of consciousness after being tied up and stabbed in the neck, but she could hear her brother dragging a safe down a hall. The noise awoke 5-year-old Dominique, one of her daughters.

"Regina testified that Jackson called Dominique to him, told her that he loved her, stabbed her, and tossed her body to the floor," according to the court record. "Jackson returned to Regina, stabbing her in the neck and twisting the knife, at which point she pretended to be dead until she heard him leave."

Jackson subsequently surrendered to police. He was convicted of four counts of capital murder at trial and sentenced to death.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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