A killer who pleaded his innocence to millions on the Internet was executed early Wednesday for the murder of an 89-year-old man in his wheelchair during a robbery.
"I wish Godspeed to all," Girvies Davis, 37, murmured just before three lethal chemicals were fed into his arm through a tube. Prison officials said it took him six minutes to die.Gov. Jim Edgar turned down pleas for clemency.
Davis was convicted in the December 1978 murder of Charles Biebel, a Belleville man shot in his wheelchair by a burglar who broke into his house. Davis also was convicted of three other murders.
His lawyers said Davis signed a confession after police drove him to a deserted road and threatened to shoot him, and that the confessions also were worthless because Davis was borderline retarded and illiterate.
The confession said Davis robbed the house with an accomplice, who shot Biebel. That man is serving a life sentence for another murder.
Davis' lawyers also noted that their client, who was black, was convicted by an all-white jury and blacks were excluded.