Two inmates executed by lethal injection in Texas, Arizona

FLORENCE, Ariz. — An Arizona man convicted of murdering two people in 1980 was put to death Wednesday in the state’s third execution since officials resumed carrying out the death penalty in May after a nearly eight-year hiatus.

Murray Hooper, 76, received a lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for the killings of William “Pat” Redmond and his mother-in-law, Helen Phelps, at Redmond’s home in Phoenix. Redmond’s wife, Marilyn, also was shot in the head in the attack but survived and testified against Hooper at trial.

Authorities say the killings were carried out at the behest of a man who wanted to take over Redmond’s printing business.

Hooper’s death was announced by Frank Strada, a deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.

Hooper chuckled several times while interacting with the execution team. It took more than 20 minutes from the time the execution team members walked into the room until they inserted IV lines in his right leg and right forearm to administer the sedative pentobarbital.

After the execution warrant was read aloud, Hooper said, “It’s all been said. Let it be done.”

Once the drug began flowing, Hooper’s fingers quivered, and he yawned. After that, he made no movement. About 15 minutes passed between when a warden said the execution was beginning and when Hooper was pronounced dead.

Arizona did not carry out the death penalty for nearly eight years after criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining execution drugs. No other executions are currently scheduled in Arizona, where 110 people are on death row.

Hooper was executed within hours of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejecting without comment a last appeal over his claim that authorities had until recently withheld that Marilyn Redmond had failed to identify him in a photo lineup.

Authorities said that claim was based on a mistake a prosecutor made in a letter to the state’s clemency board and now insist no such lineup was shown to her. She later identified Hooper in an in-person lineup.

TEXAS INMATE EXECUTED

A Texas inmate who killed his pregnant ex-girlfriend and her 7-year-old son more than 17 years ago was executed on Wednesday, after courts rejected his appeals over claims of religious freedom violations and indifference to his medical needs.

Stephen Barbee, 55, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was pronounced dead at 7:35 p.m., 26 minutes after a fatal dose of pentobarbital began flowing into his body.

Barbee had been condemned for the February 2005 deaths of Lisa Underwood, 34, and her son Jayden. Both were suffocated at their home in Fort Worth. They were later found buried in a shallow grave.

In his final statement, Barbee talked about his faith in God and hoped this would not be a sad moment for his family and friends. He did not mention Underwood or her son and did not look in the direction of his victims’ family and friends, who watched from a viewing room and locked arms with one another.

“I’m ready, Warden. Send me home,” Barbee said, as he cried. “I just want everyone to have peace in their hearts.”

On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously declined to commute Barbee’s death sentence to a lesser penalty.