By Dana Ford and Ashley Fantz
January 16, 2014
Photo courtesy rt.com
(CNN) – Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire appeared to gasp and convulse for roughly 10 minutes before he died Thursday by lethal injection using a new combination of drugs, reporters who witnessed it said.
McGuire was convicted in 1994 of the rape and murder of 22-year-old Joy Stewart, who was seven months pregnant. Her relatives were at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville to witness his death, according to tweets from television reporter Sheila Gray.
McGuire’s “children and daughter-in-law were crying and visibly upset,” Gray tweeted.
She said McGuire, before the drugs took effect, thanked Stewart’s family for a letter he apparently received.
“To my children, I’m sorry. I love you. I’m going to heaven and I’ll see you there when you come,” McGuire reportedly said, according to CNN affiliate WDTN.
Columbus Dispatch reporter Alan Johnson said that the whole execution process took 24 minutes, and that McGuire appeared to be gasping for air for 10 to 13 minutes.
“He gasped deeply. It was kind of a rattling, guttural sound. There was kind of a snorting through his nose. A couple of times, he definitely appeared to be choking,” WDTN quoted Johnson as saying.
The convicted murderer was pronounced dead at 10:53 a.m. ET.
The execution generated controversy because, like many states, Ohio has been forced to find new drug protocols after European-based manufacturers banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions — among them, Danish-based Lundbeck, which manufactures pentobarbital.