32sunrkt
05-25-2007, 09:30 AM
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070523/NEWS18/70523027&oaso=news.rgj.com
FLORENCE, Ariz. -- Robert Comer died Tuesday with a steady gaze and a defiant smile on his face, the first person to be executed in Arizona since November 2000.
He was strapped to a gurney and covered up to his neck with a sheet.
There was no sight of the catheter into his groin that made the lethal injection possible, no sight of the executioners on the other side of a wall.
But Comer was smiling; he had petitioned the federal courts to stop his appeals and hasten his own execution. He was in control of his destiny.
Comer brought a picture of his daughter with him to the death chamber and used his last words to say, "Go, Raiders."
Then, the chemicals coursed through his veins - first Sodium Pentathol to render him unconscious, then pancuronium bromide to stop his breathing and paralyze him, then potassium chloride to stop his heart - and he held that smile until he slipped away.
FLORENCE, Ariz. -- Robert Comer died Tuesday with a steady gaze and a defiant smile on his face, the first person to be executed in Arizona since November 2000.
He was strapped to a gurney and covered up to his neck with a sheet.
There was no sight of the catheter into his groin that made the lethal injection possible, no sight of the executioners on the other side of a wall.
But Comer was smiling; he had petitioned the federal courts to stop his appeals and hasten his own execution. He was in control of his destiny.
Comer brought a picture of his daughter with him to the death chamber and used his last words to say, "Go, Raiders."
Then, the chemicals coursed through his veins - first Sodium Pentathol to render him unconscious, then pancuronium bromide to stop his breathing and paralyze him, then potassium chloride to stop his heart - and he held that smile until he slipped away.