Arizona carries out the nation's 42nd execution of 2012

The 42nd Execution of 2012

Richard Dale Stokley was executed on December 5, 2012 for murdering Mandy Meyers and Mary Snyder in 1991 in a rural Arizona ghost town where they were raped, strangled and stabbed before being dumped in a partly flooded mine shaft.

Stokley had no formal last words but told members of the execution team, "I do wish that I could die doing something meaningful, you know, this seems like such a waste," reported The Associated Press.

Stokley said in a recent letter to the state clemency board that he would "go without fanfare," and he seemed at ease during the hour-long execution setup. He bantered at times with the execution team, at one point telling a joke.

The setup was extended when the execution team had difficulty finding a second injection point.

Stokley said in the letter to the board that he was sorry for the victims and their families.

However, he didn't address family members of the girls who witnessed the execution. Patricia Hancock, the mother of Mandy Meyers, said that showed cowardice.

Hancock noted that Stokley previously said accomplice Randy Brazeal had already raped the girls when Stokley finished taking a bath in a stock tank. He could have saved the girls from being murdered instead of participating, she said.

"He was a coward from the beginning and he was a coward because he couldn't face us," Hancock told AP. "He should have at least apologized."

The execution of Stokley was Arizona's 34th since 1992. Daniel Cook was put to death on Aug. 8 in Arizona's most recent execution.

Stokley said in the letter to the clemency board that he wasn't requesting clemency but thought his life was worth saving, that he knew he had made "grave and irreversible errors," and that he was sorry he "was mixed up in these awful events that brought me to this."

Dale Baich, one of Stokley's lawyers, said the inmate spent his last evening reading letters from friends and meeting with of his lawyers, reported AP.

To read more: http://www.correctionsone.com/capital-punishment/articles/6057070-Arizona-inmate-executed-after-murdering-2-girls/