This Feb. 9, 2014 photo provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections shows Missouri death row inmate Richard Strong.
A Missouri man who killed his girlfriend and her 2-year-old daughter with a butcher knife was put to death Tuesday.
Richard Strong, 48, was executed at the state prison in Bonne Terre for the deaths of Eva Washington and her daughter, Zandrea Thomas, more than 14 years ago.
He was the fourth man to die by injection in Missouri this year and the 16th since November 2013.
Only Texas has executed more inmates over that span.
“Jehovah-Jireh, you’re my provider. Your grace is sufficient for me. Forgive me for my sin,” Strong said in his final statement, according to corrections officials.
During the execution, he breathed deeply several times and briefly raised his head from the gurney pillow before becoming motionless. He was pronounced dead at 6:58 p.m. CDT.
No family members or other witnesses attended the execution on Strong’s behalf. Strong met earlier Tuesday with his mother, brother, sister-in-law and two daughters, but none of them witnessed his punishment.
Washington’s sister, Virgil Samant, who witnessed the execution, said she might feel compassion for Strong someday, “but for now I don’t give a damn. He can rot in hell.”
The bodies of Washington and her daughter were found in October 2000 in Washington’s apartment in the St. Louis suburb of St. Ann.
A large butcher knife was found on a bed next to a pool of blood. Strong and Washington’s daughter together, 3-month-old Alyshia Strong, was also on the bed, but wasn’t harmed.
Loop News Service