The United States has carried out its second federal execution this week, killing by lethal injection a Kansas man whose lawyers contended he had dementia and was unfit to be executed.
The United States has carried out its second federal execution this week, killing by lethal injection a Kansas man whose lawyers contended he had dementia and was unfit to be executed.
Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Thursday.
He was convicted of kidnapping and killing 16-year-old Jennifer Long in Kansas City, Missouri, before dismembering, burning and dumping her body in a septic pond some 200 miles away in Kansas.
Purkey was strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber.
A prison official removed a mask from his face and asked him if he wanted to make a final statement.
He leaned his head up slightly from the gurney and said: “I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer’s family. I am deeply sorry.”
Purkey also expressed remorse for his own adult daughter’s suffering his actions caused.
