Execution delayed 2 hours

STARKE — For more than two hours after he was scheduled to die, Richard Heynard waited before the courts rejected his last-ditch appeal.

In the end, he was executed late Tuesday at Florida State Prison for raping and shooting Dorothy Lewis and murdering her two young daughters. It was the longest that execution observers can recall an execution being delayed without being postponed to another day.

Lewis, who survived the ordeal and is now a pastor at New Directions Family Worship Center in Marion County, did not attend the execution. Her husband and fellow pastor, Hugh Brockington, was a witness and after it was over read a statement from her.

“Today, Mr. Heynard’s life was taken and I do not have a feeling of resolution. Therefore, this day has not brought any closure in my life,” Lewis said in the statement. “Taking the life of Mr. Heynard is not going to revive my daughters.”

Heynard, 34, was the second inmate executed in Florida since problems with the procedure and legal challenges led to an 18-month hiatus in executions. He filed a handwritten complaint in court Tuesday alleging he could suffer a painful death.

His appeals were rejected before the U.S. Supreme Court issued the final word that the execution could proceed.

The execution was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. but began at 8:05 p.m. After declining to offer any last words, Heynard appeared to pray for about two minutes before he stopped moving. He was pronounced dead at 8:16 p.m.

About 70 death penalty opponents held a protest and vigil across from the prison. Mark Elliott, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said it was “ghoulish” for an execution to take so long to be carried out.

“You wouldn’t kill a rabid dog like that,” he said.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said Heynard had not been strapped down or attached to IV lines during the delay. He was brought back to a cell until word was given that the execution could proceed, she said.

“During the delay he was praying, he was in deep thought,” she said.

Heynard was 18 years old when he and a 14-year-old accomplice carjacked Lewis and her daughters at a Eustis grocery store in 1993. He raped Lewis and shot her multiple times at close range, before driving off and helping kill her 7-year-old daughter Jamilya and 3-year-old daughter Jasmine.

He was sentenced to death in August 1994. Plessinger said prison records show he had never received a visitor other than attorneys during his time on Death Row until his godmother, Jacqueline Turner of Eustis, visited him Friday.

He spent Tuesday with his Muslim spiritual adviser, Is-Hak Saddique. He ordered a last meal of turkey sausage, fried rice, two fried chicken breasts, chocolate chip cookies and a Coke.

His execution was the second since Angel Diaz appeared to grimace in pain during a prolonged execution in December 2006. An investigation found IV lines had been pushed through his veins, causing chemicals to slowly fill his flesh before killing him.

After changes were made to the process, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said he would first sign the death warrants of the most heinous criminals. In July, Mark Dean Schwab was executed for raping and killing an 11-year-old boy.

Henyard and 14-year-old Alfonza Smalls carjacked Lewis and her daughters outside a Winn-Dixie on the night of Jan. 30, 1993. At one point, Lewis asked Jesus for help and Henyard replied, “This ain’t Jesus, this is Satan.”

Henyard and Smalls raped Lewis on the back of her car with her daughters in the back seat. Henyard shot her in the leg, neck, mouth and between the eyes. She was left for dead.

The girls were later taken from the car and killed, each with a single gunshot wound to the head.

The day after the shooting, Henyard went to the Eustis Police Department and told a story implicating Smalls and another man. When police noticed bloodstains on his sock, he admitted being involved in the crime.

Smalls was too young to face execution. He was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.