STARKE --
Amos King, maintaining his innocence to the end, was executed Wednesday by lethal injection for the rape and murder of a Tarpon Springs woman almost 26 years ago.
King, 48, was condemned for the 1977 killing of Natalie Brady, 68, who lived near a Tarpon Springs corrections center where King was a work-release inmate. He then set fire to her home.
King was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m. at Florida State Prison, Gov. Jeb Bush's office said.
``I would like the governor and the family to know I am an innocent man and the state had evidence to that effect,'' King said Wednesday on his death gurney. ``I'm sorry for the victim's family, for all the things we have gone through.''
King was caught trying to sneak back into the prison at about the same time firefighters and police arrived at Brady's home, according to court records. He fought with a counselor, James McDonough, who was stabbed 15 times with a knife that witnesses said apparently came from Brady's kitchen.
Two of Brady's nieces were crying in the front row as King gave his final statement and thanked his attorney, Peter Cannon. King continued talking after his microphone was turned off, but the audience could only see his mouth move.
Monica Watson, one of the nieces, said afterward that she can now remember her aunt without thinking of the murder.
``No one deserves to die the way she did,'' Watson said.
The execution had been set for 6 p.m., but delayed by last minute appeals, said Bush spokeswoman Liz Hirst.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected King's last appeal at 6:30 p.m. A flurry of appeals was also filed in the Florida Supreme Court, with the last motion arriving after 6 p.m. The state high court, which had rejected an appeal from King late Monday, didn't rule on the new appeals before his execution.
King also lost recent filings in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and in federal court in Tampa.
King contended in a Tuesday prison interview that he was the victim of racism, circumstances, perjured testimony, and ignored and lost evidence. He maintained his innocence in Brady's murder, saying, ``I am not confessing to anything I did not do.''
A Buddhist priest, Kevin Malone, spent much of King's final day with him. After the execution, he criticized the judicial process.
``Twenty-six years after the event, they are still trying to make the determination (of his guilt). What is wrong with this picture?'' Malone asked.
King had survived six execution attempts by three governors.
Gov. Bob Graham signed King's first warrant in 1981, followed by Gov. Bob Martinez in 1988. King also survived four execution dates last year on a warrant signed by Bush. His final execution was scheduled after DNA tests on evidence were inconclusive.
It was the 55th Florida execution since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The last one was on Dec. 9, when Linroy Bottoson was executed for murdering Catherine Alexander, the postmistress in the historic black community of Eatonville north of Orlando.
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