Gerald Smith, sentenced to death for fatally beating his former girlfriend and killing a fellow inmate during a nearly nine-year stay on death row, was executed early Thursday by lethal injection.
Smith, who had calmly faced execution and asked his lawyer not to file last-minute appeals, was pronounced dead at 12:09 a.m. CST at the Potosi Correctional Center, prison officials said.Smith was led into the death chamber, strapped into a gurney at 11:16 p.m. and prepared for the execution, said Dale Riley, assistant director of the Division of Adult Institutions. The prisoner requested a sedative and napped shortly before he was taken from his isolation cell.
When the blinds to the death chamber were opened, Smith craned his neck and strained to glance at his wife, Lynn, who was standing in a witness room behind his head.
She appeared to mouth the words "I love you" through the glass partition and smiled at him. Smith winked at his wife several times before the drugs were administered and he drifted into unconsciousness.