John Clayton Smith, 41 anni, � stato messo a morte.

ST.LOUIS (USA), 29 OTT - Un uomo che ha ucciso la sua ex compagna e il suocero di lei e' stato oggi giustiziato nella prigione di Potosi (Missouri) con una iniezione letale.

John Clayton Smith, 41 anni, aveva commesso il doppio crimine il 4 luglio 1997 a colpi di coltello, infierendo anche contro la suocera, che pero' si e' salvata. Da due anni il detenuto aveva rinunciato a ogni ulteriore appello contro la condanna a morte.

Missouri executes man convicted in two stabbing deaths in 1997

A Missouri inmate who waived his remaining appeals and said he preferred death over more prison time was executed early today in the 1997 bloody slayings of his former girlfriend and her stepfather.

John Clayton Smith, 42, was put to death by injection at the Potosi Correctional Center in the fatal stabbings of Brandie Kearns and Wayne Hoewing in their northeast Missouri home.

Smith stabbed and cut Kearns, 22, 8 times. She survived long enough to scrawl "It was Joh-" in her own blood on the kitchen floor and leave a dying farewell to her toddler daughter. The girl was later found unharmed at the feet of her dead mother's body. Hoewing, 51, was knifed 11 times.

Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Bob Holden declined two clemency requests filed without the inmate's blessings.

Smith also had access to forms for 11th-hour federal appeals Tuesday but never made use of them.

Department of Corrections officials declared Smith dead minutes after the first of three injections were administered. Smith mouthed the words "I'm sorry" to reporters and other state witnesses, then did the same toward the victims' witnesses. After the execution was completed and it was announced that Smith was dead, 1 witness on behalf of the victims said "burn in hell."

Smith's push to halt his appeals dated at least to mid-2001, when he told the judge who condemned him that he was "totally guilty," "very sorry," mentally fit to abandon his legal challenges and ready to die "once and for all."

"The punishment of death is suitable," he wrote then.

Without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to intervene.

Earlier Tuesday, one of Brandie Kearns' sisters said she looked forward to watching Smith die, accusing the killer of "taking the easy way out" as a killer "too much of a coward to live in prison."

"I'm just very glad he's going to burn in hell," said Bridie Brooks, 31, an insurance claims examiner in Williamstown. She called Smith's demise "the ultimate justice."

Smith and Kearns dated about 2 years before Kearns broke off the relationship roughly a month before Smith sneaked into the family's home near Canton and knifed Kearns and her stepfather. Hoewing, while mortally wounded, managed to point a loaded firearm at Smith.

"Go ahead and shoot me," Smith taunted Hoewing in the wee hours of that July 5, 1997.

No shot was fired, and Smith walked from the scene.

While clinging to life, Kearns used her blood to scrawl "It was Joh-" "I (heart) Tatu-" and "-and s-v- T-tum" on the floor. The last 2 messages referred to Tatum, Kearns' baby girl. Tatum, now 7, is living with Kearns' mother.

Smith becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Missouri and the 61st overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1989.

Smith becomes the 58th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 878th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.