A convicted killer was executed despite his claim that he did not know right from wrong when he abducted a young Air Force nurse as she shopped for furniture.
Barry Lee Fairchild, 41, had no final statement before being put to death by injection Thursday evening."Barry Lee Fairchild was very much at peace with himself and the real tragedy in all of this is all of the uncertainty that surrounded this case," said his lawyer, Steven Hawkins.
Fairchild confessed to abducting and raping 22-year-old Marjorie Mason in 1983 but said he did not kill her.
Mason had been at the Little Rock Air Force Base for just 10 days when she was killed. Her mother, Sandra White of Fort Worth, Texas, wrote to Gov. Jim Guy Tucker asking him to refuse clemency.
Tests showed that Fairchild's IQ was as low as 60 or as high as 87. Under an Arkansas law passed last year, the state cannot execute anyone with an IQ under 65. The law did not apply to Fairchild because the murder occurred 12 years ago.