Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.S. executes Kansan, 2nd man in week
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — The United States on Thursday carried out its second federal execution in three days after a hiatus of nearly two decades, killing by lethal injection a Kansas man whose lawyers contended he had dementia and was unfit to be executed.
Wesley Ira Purkey, 68, was put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind. He was sentenced to be executed for kidnapping and killing a 16-year-old girl, Jennifer Long, and then dismembering, burning and dumping her body in a septic pond in 1998. He also was convicted in a state court in Kansas of using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who had polio.
After Purkey was strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber, a prison official removed a mask from his face and asked if he wanted to make a final statement.
He leaned his head up slightly from the gurney and said: “I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer’s family. I am deeply sorry.”
He also expressed remorse for his own adult daughter’s suffering from his actions. “I deeply regret the pain I caused to my daughter, who I love so very much,” he said.
His last words were: “This sanitized murder really does not serve no purpose whatsoever. Thank you.”
As the lethal chemical was injected, Purkey took several deep breaths and blinked repeatedly, laying his head back down on the gurney before dying.
Jennifer’s father, William Long, and her stepmother were there. Long said delays since the 2003 trial were excruciating and he was glad it was over.
He said he hoped Purkey “rots in hell.”
“We took care of today what we needed to take care of,” Long said. “It has been a long time coming. He needed to take his last breath; he took my daughter’s last breath. And there’s some resolve. There is no closure, and there never will be because I won’t get my daughter back.”
The Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to take place just hours before, ruling in a 5-4 decision. The four liberal justices dissented, as they had for the first case earlier this week.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “proceeding with Purkey’s execution now, despite the grave questions and factual findings regarding his mental competency, casts a shroud of constitutional doubt over the most irrevocable of injuries.” She was joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
The Supreme Court also lifted a hold placed on other executions set for today and next month.
Dustin Honken, a drug kingpin from Iowa convicted in the 1993 killings of five people, including two young girls, in a scheme to silence former dealers, is to be put to death at the prison today.
“He does deserve what he’s getting. I can tell you that. He deserved it a long time ago,” said Susan Torres, 54, who plans to attend Honken’s execution with other victims’ relatives.
Honken’s lawyers filed an emergency request to stay the execution Thursday. A judge didn’t immediately rule on the request, which claims the execution protocol is arbitrary and capricious.
Torres, who lives in Des Moines, Iowa, was Lori Duncan’s sister-in-law before her brother and Duncan split up and she was an aunt to Duncan’s daughters, 10-year-old Kandi and 6-year-old Amber. Duncan, her new boyfriend, Greg Nicholson, and her daughters were kidnapped and killed by Honken and his girlfriend in 1993, which was seven years before their bodies were found.
Mark Bennett, the federal judge who oversaw Honken’s trial, said he generally opposes the death penalty, but that if anyone deserved to be executed, it was Honken.
Purkey’s was the federal government’s second execution after a 17-year hiatus as the Trump administration pressed for a resumption. Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death Tuesday after his eleventh-hour legal bids failed. Both executions were delayed as legal wrangling continued late into the night and into the next morning.
A Justice Department spokeswoman on Thursday said a just punishment had been carried out.
“After many years of litigation following the death of his victims, in which he lived and was afforded every due process of law under our Constitution, Purkey has finally faced justice,” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. Information for this article was contributed by Ryan J. Foley, Colleen Long and Michael Tarm of The Associated Press.