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| Inmate who wanted state to kill him is executed |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/31/2004 |
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A man who said he killed a fellow inmate because he was seeking the death penalty was executed last Wednesday after a 24-hour delay. An executioner who received $150 for his services began a series of injections beginning at 6:01 p.m. John Blackwelder was pronounced dead about 12 minutes later. Blackwelder, 49, was convicted in the calculated strangling of Raymond Wigley, who was serving a life term for murder. At the time of the slaying, Blackwelder was serving life without parole for a series of sex convictions. He said he killed Wigley and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder so he would be sentenced to die. His execution was delayed a day after prison inmate William Demler wrote to the state attorney general's office to say another inmate told him that yet another inmate confessed to killing Wigley, 39, at Columbia Correctional Institution in May 2000. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement used DNA evidence to disprove the letter, said Gov. Jeb Bush. Outside the prison, about two dozen people had gathered to protest the execution. Blackwelder was the second inmate to die in Florida this year and the 15th to die by lethal injection. The first 44 executions in Florida, beginning with John Spenkelink in 1979, were carried out in the state's electric chair. Seven of the last 11 executions in Florida were inmates who dropped their appeals to speed up their deaths. |
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