Death row murderer dies 13-minutes after lethal injections and utters chilling final words
A murderer has been executed 28 years after he stabbed a woman to death with a butcher knife.
Jermaine Cannon received a lethal injection in Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester at 10am on 20 July.
Thirteen minutes later, he died at the age of 51.
Before he took his final breaths, he was asked if he had any last words, to which he said: "Yes, I confess with my mouth and believe in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. Therefore I am saved. Thank you."
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Cannon was on death row for the 1995 murder of Sharonda Clark, a 20-year-old mother of two who he'd been sharing a Tulsa apartment with after his escape weeks earlier from a prison work centre.
He'd been serving a 15-year sentence for the vicious assault of another woman, who he had beaten with a claw hammer, iron and kitchen toaster before raping.
The woman had been left with permanent injuries.
Clark's body had been found when a relative reported her missing because she'd failed to pick her children up from daycare.
When she was found, she had three stab wounds on her neck.
Authorities at the time said she had died in a 'violent struggle.'
Cannon was tracked down in Flint, Michigan, where he had escaped to stay with his uncle.
It was Cannon's mother had reportedly convinced him to turn himself into police after he revealed that Clark was dead.
The day before his execution, a federal appeals court had turned down a last-minute appeal from Cannon.
He was seeking a stay of execution, claiming, among other things, that he was Native American and not subject to Oklahoma jurisdiction.
Until his final days, he insisted that Clark had been killed as an act of self-defense.
Speaking to the parole board via a video feed from the state penitentiary, he said: "I am deeply disheartened that the act of defending my life and the acts that she initiated against me ever happened.
"The ending of human life was never desired, planned or premeditated."
His pleas for clemency were denied, to the relief of Clark's family.
Clark's daughter said: "Relief for my family, relief for my sister's pain, relief for my grandmother that didn't make it to see this day."
Cannon's execution was the second in Oklahoma this year and the ninth since the state resumed lethal injections in 2021.
Ben Thompson