The 38th Execution of 2011
Alabama executed Christopher Thomas Johnson for the brutal murder of his six-month-old son in 2005. Johnson plead guilty to capital murder in the death of 6-month-old Elias Ocean Johnson. He requested the death penalty, granted in 2007, and waived all appeals.
According Reuters, Johnson's last words before being put to death by lethal injection were, "Game over." He was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. local time on October 20, 2011 at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
The forensic pathologist who performed the child's autopsy testified during the trial that the infant suffered at least 85 separate injuries. Suffocation and head trauma were cited as the causes of death.
Johnson represented himself at trial. He testified he killed his son because he "hated his wife, didn't want to be near her and didn't want to worry about her threats of putting him in jail for alimony or child support," according to the state Attorney General's Office.
Johnson offered no mitigating circumstances for his crime, and the trial court found the "the heinous, atrocious and cruel" nature of the murder outweighed any justifications that could have been offered, records show.
Johnson was the sixth inmate executed in Alabama in 2011.
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