Professing his innocence until the end, a former TV repairman was executed for killing his girlfriend and then cutting up her body to prevent authorities from identifying her remains.
Ralph C. Feltrop, 42, was pronounced dead at 12:06 a.m. Wednesday.Strapped to a gurney, a white sheet pulled up to his neck, Feltrop turned his head toward the room where his relatives were watching and smiled.
His last words were: "I am innocent of the murder charge. I was defending myself. This was a case of accidental death. I am legally innocent of this crime," prison officials said.
Feltrop was convicted of using a knife to sever an artery in 27-year-old Barbara Ann Roam's neck in March 1987 at the trailer they shared. He put her body in a refrigerator for several days, then dismembered it to thwart police, authorities said.
In a telephone interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Feltrop admitted killing Roam but maintained it was self-defense. He said she attacked him over dinner with a steak knife after accusing him of seeing another woman, and hours later he awakened to find her kneeling over him with a knife.
"I defended myself, trying to get the knife and in the process, she got stuck," Feltrop said. When asked why he chopped up her body, Feltrop replied: "I was in a panic, and I didn't know what I was doing."
"I'm a meek, gentle man. A caring man," he said.