In an execution that took 24 minutes to complete, Dennis McGuire looked like he was struggling to breathe for 10 more minutes.
Back in 1994, McGuire was convicted of raping and murdering 22-year old Joy Stewart, who was seven months pregnant at the time. Her body was found near a creek by hikers back in 1989, where she appeared to have been sodomized and her throat cut.
In a report by CNN, the family of Stewart was there to witness McGuire's death by lethal injection. As for the convicted's family, they appeared to have been very upset and crying.
The execution became controversial because the prison had to use new drugs, since European-based drug manufacturers recently banned US prisons to use their drugs for executions, which included a drug called pentobarbital.
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville had to come up with other drugs in order to execute the inmate. They used midazolam, a known sedative as well as the painkiller hydromorphone.
Alan Johnson, a Columbus dispatcher explains, "He gasped deeply. It was kind of a rattling, guttural sound. There was kind of a snorting through his nose. A couple of times, he definitely appeared to be choking."
Howard Nearma, a Cleveland-based anesthesiologist claims that McGuire gasping for air and the time it took for him to die was not normal. "Why it took 24 minutes, I really can't tell you. It just makes you wonder -- what was given? What was the timing, and what were the doses?"
McGuire's legal team is calling on to the government to have a moratorium the next time such executions take place. "At this point, it is entirely premature to consider this execution protocol to be anything other than a failed, agonizing experiment," Attorney Allen Bohnert says in a statement.
The inmate's legal team further calls on to the public, claiming that the state has failed to follow the law after what was witnessed during the execution.
Currently, there is 1 woman and138 men lined up for death penalty in the Ohio prison.
McGuire was pronounced dead Thursday 10:53 AM EST.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
