An Indiana man who was convicted of killing three men during a 1988 drinking spree and said he would rather die than spend the rest of his life in prison was executed Wednesday, officials said.
Kevin Conner, 40, died from a lethal injection at 12:31 a.m. inside the death chamber at Indiana State Prison.
In an obscenity-laced final statement related by a prison spokeswoman, Conner said, “Everybody has to die sometime, so ... let’s get on with the killing.”
His final meal came from Dairy Queen: four chili dogs, onion rings, a banana split and an Oreo-cookie Blizzard ice-cream drink, Correction Department spokeswoman Java Ahmed said. Conner also smoked two cigars -- an exception to the prison’s no-smoking policy granted to condemned inmates.
Kathy Stinton-Glen, one of Conner’s attorneys who witnessed the execution, described his demeanor beforehand as “calm and ready to be done with things.”
Conner had refused to seek clemency from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, writing in a letter to the governor: “Killing a person is far more honest and human than imposed repression under the guise of justice in the penal system.”
Killing spree
On Jan. 26, 1988, Conner was drinking at the home of a friend, Anthony Moore, with two other men, Steven Wentland and Bruce Voge.
While out for a drive, Conner stabbed Moore, hit him with a car, and later killed him with a blast from a sawed-off shotgun. He then stabbed Wentland more than a dozen times and returned to Moore’s home and killed Voge, waking him first so he could see what was coming.
He was arrested two days later in Texas on a bus bound for California.
Conner appealed his conviction on the grounds that the jury did not fully weigh the the impact of his drunkenness on his judgment, but a panel of judges denied the appeal.
While in prison, he attempted a breakout with four other inmates, and he was suspected in the unresolved killing of another death-row inmate.
Conner’s execution was the fourth this year in Indiana and the 31st in the United States. It was the 975th execution since the United States resumed the death penalty in 1976.
