Georgia executes man for 1996 murder of female neighbour

ATLANTA - A Georgia man whose next-door neighbour pleaded for her life before he killed her during a 1996 burglary was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday, the state's attorney general said.

Kenneth Earl Fults, 47, died at 7:37 p.m. at a state prison in Jackson, Georgia, Attorney General Sam Olens said.

It was the fourth execution in Georgia this year and the 12th in the United States.

Fults shot 19-year-old Cathy Bounds five times in the back of the head after breaking into her home in Spalding County, according to a court synopsis of the case.

Bounds begged for her life and offered Fults the rings off her fingers before he wrapped more than 6 feet of electrical tape around her head, forced her into a bedroom and placed her face down on her bed, where he shot her, court documents said.

The Georgia pardons and parole board denied Fults' petition for clemency late on Monday. On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court declined to issue a stay of execution.

In the petition, which asked the board to commute Fults'sentence to life without parole, his lawyers described the inmate as intellectually disabled and deeply remorseful.

Fults pleaded guilty to charges of murder, burglary, kidnapping with bodily injury and possession of a firearm in the commission of a crime. A jury sentenced him to death in 1997.

The petition described Fults, a former gang member, as "the kid who fell through the cracks," with an alcoholic, drug-addicted mother who tried to abort him by drinking turpentine, an absent father and an abusive stepfather.

Three jurors who voted to give Fults the death sentence have expressed concern about the fairness of the punishment because they saw Fults' attorney sleeping during the sentencing trial, according to the petition.

Fults told police he shot Bounds by accident while in a"dream-like state," but police found a letter in his trailer describing the killing in detail, court documents said.

The murder followed a week-long crime spree during which Fults tried to kill his former girlfriend's new boyfriend with a handgun stolen in an earlier burglary, according to court documents.

Fults accepted a final prayer and offered no statement before his death, the state department of corrections said.