Aerospace engineer's killer is put to death by injection

A man who was convicted of stabbing an aerospace engineer 13 times during a robbery was executed by injection early Thursday.

"Wow!" John Ashley Brown Jr. exclaimed as the lethal dose of drugs began flowing into his veins. He started shaking, then grew still.The U.S. Supreme Court twice turned down last-minute appeals Wednesday.

Brown, 35, was convicted of first-degree murder in the September 1984 stabbing of Omer Laugh-lin, who was robbed along with his wife, Patricia, outside a New Orleans restaurant.

Laughlin, 53, who worked on the Apollo and space shuttle programs, was stabbed with a large hunting knife.