The southern US state of Arkansas, rushing to execute several inmates before a lethal drug expires at the end of the month, put to death Tuesday a prisoner convicted of raping and murdering a woman in 1995, the attorney general said.
Jack Jones was executed after the US Supreme Court rejected an 11th-hour appeal from his attorneys asking the justices to reconsider a procedural issue from his trial.
"This evening, Lacey Phillips Manor and Darla Phillips Jones have seen justice for the brutal rape and murder of their mother, Mary Phillips," Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement.
"Mary was performing her job as a bookkeeper in Bald Knob on June 6, 1995, when she was strangled to death with a coffeepot cord while her 11-year-old daughter Lacey clung to life a few feet away after being choked and beaten," Rutledge said.
"The Phillips family has waited far too long to see justice carried out, and I pray they find peace tonight."