Associated Press
Caption: Death penalty opponents protest on the grounds of the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Ky., Friday, Nov. 21, 2008, where confessed child-killer Marco Allen Chapman was put to death. The lighted prison is seen in the background. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
EDDYVILLE, Ky. — The curtains between the execution chamber and the witness room opened, revealing Marco Allen Chapman strapped to a gurney, arms stretched at his sides and IV in each.
Before an execution team injected a lethal three-drug cocktail, the 37-year-old confessed child killer raised his head, looked into the victim’s witness room and apologized.
“This is the man I am, willing to give his life,” Chapman said.
The execution brought an end to a four-year journey for Chapman and his surviving victims, Carolyn Marksberry and her daughter, Courtney Sharon. Chapman pleaded guilty in December 2004 to attacking Marksberry and her three children, killing the two youngest, 7-year-old Chelbi and 6-year-old Cody Sharon in August 2002.
In the ensuing years between the guilty plea and Friday night’s lethal injection, Chapman fought to fire his attorneys, end all appeals and die. Marksberry attended court hearings, but mostly stayed silent as she waited to see Chapman get his final wish.
After Chapman was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m. CST, Carolyn Marksberry released a statement saying the execution many now allow her children to “truly rest in peace.”
“The execution of Marco Chapman for the murders of my children Chelbi and Cody Sharon is another sad but fitting chapter to the tragedy three families have lived with over the past six years,” Marksberry said.
Chapman focused on the two children in his final statement, but said he doesn’t seek forgiveness for what he did.
“I have no right to ask for forgiveness and don’t intend to but I want you to know that I believe whole heartedly that Cody and Shelby are safe in Heaven,” Chapman said. “I don’t know if I deserve Heaven after what I did but I pray with all my heart that I find some sort of peace and happiness after my last breath.”
The execution took about 14 minutes. About two minutes after Simpson ordered it to start, Chapman took several short, rapid breaths, then was still.
On a field in the back of the prison, nearly a dozen death penalty opponents braved near-freezing temperatures for a candlelight vigil.
“This was a state-assisted suicide,” said Kaye Gallagher, a coordinator for the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Chapman took a Bible, writing materials and a television to the execution house Thursday, said Lisa Lamb, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Corrections. He requested a last meal of a 32-ounce sirloin steak, 20 butterfly shrimp, salad, iced tea and a banana cream pie.
His remains were to be cremated and turned over to family members, Lamb said.
Kentucky has executed two people since states resumed the practice in 1977 after a four-year court-mandated layoff. Harold McQueen was put to death in the electric chair in 1997 for the shooting of a Richmond store clerk. Eddie Lee Harper waived the remainder of his appeals in 1999 for the killing of his adoptive parents in Louisville in 1982.
Executions most recently in Kentucky and elsewhere around the country were halted for nearly a year while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a challenge to Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol.
The high court in April turned away the challenge, which sought to have the drug cocktail used by Kentucky and nearly three dozen other states declared cruel and unusual punishment.