Ricky McGinn, the only death-row inmate to be granted a reprieve by Texas Gov. George W. Bush (news - web sites), was finally executed on Wednesday after DNA tests confirmed he raped and killed his 12-year-old stepdaughter.

McGinn, 43, was pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m. CDT (7:23 p.m. EDT) after chemicals were injected into his arms at the state prison in Huntsville, said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Larry Fitzgerald.

McGinn had been scheduled to die on June 1 for the 1993 crime, but Bush gave him a 30-day stay so that DNA tests could be conducted. McGinn claimed the tests would clear him but instead, they only sealed his fate.

The reprieve came at a time when Bush, the Republican presidential nominee who is campaigning as a ``compassionate conservative,'' was coming under criticism for the rising number of executions in Texas, the nation's leading death penalty state.

He had previously commuted a death sentence to life in prison on recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, but he had never exercised his power to unilaterally grant a reprieve.Texas has now put 232 people to death since the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) lifted a national death penalty ban in 1976, by far the most the in nation. McGinn was the 145th person executed since Bush took office in January 1995. McGinn was sentenced to die for the May 22, 1993, murder of stepdaughter Stephanie Flanary, 12. She was raped and beaten to death with the blunt side of an ax and her body dumped by the side of the road in Brown County in central Texas. McGinn claimed innocence and said DNA tests would exonerate him, but the results of the tests confirmed his guilt last month and a new execution date was set.

On Wednesday, as he was strapped to a gurney in the Texas death chamber, he said the execution ``ain't right,'' but that he wanted to leave no hard feelings.

``I don't want nobody to be mad at me, nobody. I don't want nobody to be bitter. Keep clean hearts and I will see you all on the other side,'' he told execution witnesses, who included members of his and his victim's families. McGinn blew a kiss to the weeping witnesses and nodded at them before his final statement. As the lethal injection flowed into his veins, McGinn closed his eyes, smiled, gave a slight groan and then died. His face, which had been pinkish in color, turned a grayish white.