Washington (AFP) - A 69-year-old man convicted of murdering his ex-lover in 2009 was executed on Tuesday in the midwestern US state of Missouri.
David Hosier, a former US Navy sailor and firefighter, was put to death by lethal injection at a prison in the town of Bonne Terre.
Hosier was pronounced dead at 6:11 pm (2311 GMT), the Missouri Department of Corrections said in a statement.
Hosier had long claimed he was innocent of the murders of Angela Gilpin and her husband Rodney Gilpin, but Missouri Governor Mike Parson, a Republican, rejected his appeal for clemency on Monday.
He was the second inmate put to death in Missouri this year, and the seventh in the United States.
"Hosier murdered Angela and Rodney Gilpin at their apartment in Jefferson City, Missouri, in a jealous rage," Parson said in a statement.
"Angela Gilpin had her life stolen by David Hosier because he could not accept it when she ended their romantic involvement," Parson said.
"He displays no remorse for his senseless violence," the governor added. "For these heinous acts, Hosier earned maximum punishment under the law."
There were 24 executions in the United States in 2023, all of them carried out by lethal injection.
According to a recent Gallup Poll, 53 percent of Americans support the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, the lowest level since 1972.
Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states, while the governors of six others -- Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee -- have put a hold on its use.
