BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man who long maintained his innocence was executed Tuesday for the fatal shooting of a state trooper more than 20 years ago.
Lance Shockley , 48, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a lethal injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre.
Shockley was convicted of killing Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Dewayne Graham Jr. in March 2005. Prosecutors said he waited for hours near Graham’s home in Van Buren, in southeast Missouri, and shot him with a rifle and shotgun after the trooper exited his patrol vehicle.
Shockley’s execution was one of two in the country Tuesday. Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, died by lethal injection in Florida for the killings of two women whose bodies were found in a rural pond in 1996.
In the death chamber, Shockley