HANDOUT/Reuters
A Missouri inmate was executed by lethal injection Wednesday for raping and killing a college student in 1995.
Michael Worthington, 43, was the first U.S. inmate to be put to death since a botched lethal injection last month in Arizona - it took nearly two hours for that prisoner to die.
Before the execution, Worthington spoke to his witnesses, including family members, through the glass while he was strapped to a gurney.
Worthington, formerly of Peoria, Ill., lowered his head against a pillow as the drugs started flowing into his body. He started to breathe heavily for roughly 15 seconds before closing his eyes for good.
He was pronounced dead at the state prison south of St. Louis at 12:11 a.m., just 10 minutes after the process began, becoming the seventh inmate executed in Missouri this year.
The convicted rapist and murderer had been sentenced to death in 1998 for the attack on Melinda 'Mindy' Griffin, 24, during a burglary at her condominium in Lake St. Louis.
In September of 1995, Worthington cut open a window screen, entered her apartment, raped her and strangled her, he confessed.
AP
He swiped her car keys, jewelry and credit cards, which he used to buy drugs.
But Worthington insisted he could not remember killing the young woman and claimed he would blackout regularly because of alcohol and cocaine abuse. He thought a life sentence would have been a more appropriate sentence.
DNA testing linked him to the murder.
Worthington's attorneys asked the Supreme Court to put off the execution citing three others - in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma - in which the drugs did not kill the inmates as swiftly as intended.
Joseph Rudolph Wood, who was convicted of fatally shooting a 29-year-old woman and her 55-year-old father in 1989, was put to death last month.
He died one hour and 57 minutes after the execution began.
The U.S. Supreme Court and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declined to block the execution on Tuesday. Worthington did not expect his life to be spared and accepted his death.
'I figure I'll wake up in a better place tomorrow,' he told http://ift.tt/1m1lLds over the phone. 'I'm just accepting of whatever's going to happen because I have no choice. The courts don't seem to care about what's right or wrong anymore.'
Carol Angelbeck, Griffin's 76-year-old mother, watched him die.
'I feel I'm glad he's dead,' she told reporters. 'I won't have to deal with him, with our legal system. It's just about Mindy now.'
With News Wire Services
mwalsh@nydailynews.com
Entities 0 Name: Worthington Count: 6 1 Name: Missouri Count: 3 2 Name: Griffin Count: 2 3 Name: Arizona Count: 2 4 Name: St. Louis Count: 1 5 Name: U.S. Supreme Court Count: 1 6 Name: Mindy Count: 1 7 Name: Peoria Count: 1 8 Name: Melinda Count: 1 9 Name: U.S. Count: 1 10 Name: Michael Worthington Count: 1 11 Name: Carol Angelbeck Count: 1 12 Name: Supreme Court Count: 1 13 Name: http://ift.tt/1m1lLds Count: 1 14 Name: Ill. Count: 1 15 Name: Ohio Count: 1 16 Name: Lake St. Louis Count: 1 17 Name: Jay Nixon Count: 1 18 Name: News Wire Services Count: 1 19 Name: Oklahoma Count: 1 20 Name: Joseph Rudolph Wood Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1qTdJUO Title: Supreme Court denies stay in Missouri execution Description: ST. LOUIS (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court and Missouri's governor denied petitions late Tuesday from an inmate who was set to become the first U.S. inmate put to death since a lethal injection went awry last month in Arizona. Michael Worthington, 43, raped and strangled a college student in 1995.