Tennessee inmate Stephen West, who was convicted of fatally stabbing a woman and her daughter in 1986, was executed on Thursday, Aug. 15, via the electric chair, said officials.
West was pronounced dead at 7:27 p.m., said the Tennessee Department of Correction.
His last meal was a Philly cheesesteak, the news outlet reported.
“In the beginning God created man,” he also said.
Jack Campbell, a relative of the mother and daughter, lamented the legal system for allowing West to escape the death penalty several times.
“Our family has suffered very deeply over the past 33 years through all the appeals that we think is very unfair for anyone to have to go through when all of the proof in the world was there for the case to be over within 24 hours, let alone 33 years,” he said in a statement via CNN.
According to CNN, West denied that he killed the mother and daughter and blamed their deaths on an accomplice.
West’s legal team also issued a comment about the matter.
“We are deeply disappointed that the state of Tennessee has gone forward with the execution of a man whom the state had diagnosed with severe mental illness. A man of deep faith who has made a positive impact on those around him for decades and a man who by overwhelming evidence did not commit these murders but has never the less taken personal responsibility for his involvement in these crimes,” his lawyers said.
Before the slaying West worked as a McDonald’s employee who had spent 3 years in the U.S. Army.
West’s attorneys claimed his then-17-year-old accomplice Ronnie Martin was actually the one who killed the mom and daughter.
Martin pleaded guilty, getting a life sentence with the possibility of parole in 2030.
Tennessee’s governor denied his clemency application, which said he suffered from abuse as a child and was also taking medication to treat mental illnesses.
