Lloyd Wayne Hampton went to his death Wednesday apologizing to his family but not to the 69-year-old man he tied up, tortured and then stabbed in the throat.
"I've been running from myself since I was a small boy in Texas, and my 44 years have been filled with intense anger and rage!" Hampton said in a statement dictated before his execution. "I blame no one but myself, and I hope my loved ones will forgive me for the sorrow I've caused them."The Texas drifter made no mention of Roy "Jasper" Pendleton, the Troy resident he killed in 1990.
"I offer no excuses for things I have or haven't done," he said.
Hampton was one of two killers executed by injection early Wednesday. Arizona's longest-serving death row inmate, Jose Ceja, was put to death for killing a Phoenix couple in 1974.
The time between Hampton's conviction and execution was the shortest so far in Illinois, largely because he skipped some appeals.
Hampton was sentenced to die in June 1990, four months after he was arrested for another crime while driving Pendleton's car. Police found Pendleton's body at a hotel.
Ceja, 42, had spent 23 years and one month on death row.
He was executed at a prison in Florence, Ariz., for killing Randy and Linda Leon of Phoenix during a botched drug robbery. Prosecutors say he repeatedly shot Mrs. Leon, 24, then waited for her 22-year-old husband to come home and killed him.