A former US Marine who pleaded guilty to raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in 2000 was executed in Mississippi on Wednesday.
Thomas Edwin Lowden, 58, received a lethal injection at 6pm (0000 GMT) at Parchman Penitentiary, an overcrowded prison in this conservative southern US state.
Mr Lowden pleaded guilty in 2000 to abducting Lisa Gray, who was alone on a country road after her car had a flat tire.
A former marine and recruiter for the army, he confessed to repeatedly raping her in his van before suffocating her and strangling her.
Lowden was found the next day on the side of the road with the words “I’m sorry” carved into his chest, according to court documents.
He was sentenced to death in 2001.
Wednesday’s execution was the first in Mississippi this year and the second since 2013, as the state has struggled recently to protect lethal substances needed for executions.
He will become the 18th inmate to be executed in the United States in 2022.
The death penalty is legal in nearly half of the 50 US states, but so far this year only five states have used it: Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
