A man has been executed on his birthday for torturing and killing his girlfriend's three-year-old son.
Richard Stephen Fairchild, 63, was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester after he killed young Adam Broomhall in 1993.
The ex-marine died at 10.24am after an appeal for clemency was rejected last month.
The board voted four to one against the request and prosecutors from the Oklahoma attorney general's office said "the method of Adam's murder can only be described as torture".
He was convicted after prosecutors said he held both sides of the toddler's body against a hot furnace and threw him onto a table.
Young Adam would never regain consciousness and died later the same day.
Expressing remorse, Fairchild said: "Today's a day for Adam, justice for Adam. I'm at peace with God. Don't grieve for me because I'm going home to meet my heavenly father."
His death - Fairchild was given the first of a controversial three-drug cocktail at 10:10am - is the seventh execution in Oklahoma since October 2021. The state is known to have the highest execution rate per capita in the whole of the US.
From a budget of $25 (£21.76), he is known to have ordered a last meal of two quarter-pounder cheeseburgers, large chips, pumpkin pie, a pint of chocolate ice cream and a large coke to drink.
Fairchild's passing makes him the third person in the US to be executed this week after two more death row inmates had their sentences carried out on Wednesday.
Those responsible for defending him said Fairchild was remorseful for what's had done to Broomhall, but Adma's uncle Michael Hurst said justice had been done and said he was surprised Fairchild expressed remorse.
"Our long journey for justice has finally arrived," he said.
Attorney Emma Rolls appealed on Fairchild's behalf against his execution sentence. Appeals were filed with Oklahoma's Court of Criminal Appeals and the US Supreme Court, but both were rejected.
"As Richard Fairchild's brain has deteriorated, he has descended into psychosis, a fact well-documented in his prison records," she said.
"Yet despite having lost touch with reality, Richard remains remorseful for his crime and continues to have an unblemished prison record. There is no principled reason for Oklahoma to execute him."
On Wednesday, Fairchild's team filed an emergency motion for stay of execution based on competency.
They argued that his "connection to reality has been tenuous throughout the over 20 years our office has represented him."
In a statement, Rolls said that conversations with him showed his connection with reality was "severed" and that he "believes his brother is torturing him with a voice recording device from outside the prison."
