Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Two condemned killers, one of them a prisoner opponents said was mentally retarded and should not be executed, were put to death Wednesday evening in the nation's busiest death chamber. “I want to apologize to the family of Kelly Elizabeth Donovan,” a sobbing and teary-eyed Oliver David Cruz, 33, the second of the inmates to be punished, said. “I'm sorry for what I did to her 12 years ago. I wish they could forgive me for what I did.”

Cruz, considered mentally retarded by his supporters, was condemned for the 1988 abduction, rape and fatal stabbing of a 24-year-old woman stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Cruz's IQ tested as low as 63 but the Supreme Court, which has allowed other mentally ill or retarded inmates to be executed, voted 6-3 Wednesday morning to deny his emergency application for a reprieve.

The court also rejected a separate appeal for Cruz. “I'm sorry for hurting my family, I'm sorry for hurting my friends. Please forgive me,” Cruz said. He then sobbed and exclaimed: “Take me home Jesus, I'm ready.” As his face twitched, he took one deep breath and stopped moving. Moments later, a tear began running out of his right eye and down the side of his face.

He was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CDT, five minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms. About 30 minutes earlier, Brian Keith Roberson, condemned for the 1986 stabbing deaths of an elderly couple who lived across the street from him in Dallas, was executed.

Smiling and defiant to the end, Roberson, 36, lashed out at family members and police officers who testified against him at his trial. “You ain't got what you want,” he said. He then said he wanted to tell all the “racist white folks that hate blacks” and all the “black folks who hate themselves” that in the words of his brother Nat Turner, “You all can kiss by black a**. I'm ready. Let's go. I'll see you when you get there.”

Roberson then said goodbye to his family members and died at 6:17 p.m. CDT, five minutes after the lethal drug cocktail was injected. He lost an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court by a 7-2 vote earlier Wednesday.

“This has brought closure to this grim and gruesome situation,” said Randy Fleming, grandson of Roberson's victims, and one of the people who watched Roberson die. Roberson's twin brother, Bruce, who also watched the execution, was critical of Gov. George W. Bush but said he was going to party Wednesday night. “When God comes, he's going to kick ass and take names,” Bruce Roberson said. “And justice system: You can kiss my a**.”

The back-to-back lethal injections were the first multiple executions in Texas since June 1997 and marked the third time since capital punishment resumed in the state in 1982 that more than one inmate was executed in one day. “The execution dates are set by district judges at the local level,” said Heather Browne, a spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General's office. “The fact that two executions are set on the same date is just coincidence.”

The double execution was a far cry from Feb. 8, 1924, when Texas prison officials, taking over execution duties from the counties for the first time, inaugurated the electric chair in Huntsville by putting five inmates to death.

The attention paid to the two inmates has paled in comparison to the hoopla that drew the hundreds of protesters and media to Huntsville in June for the lethal injection of Gary Graham. Graham's claims of innocence and an unfair trial spotlighted Texas as the nation's execution capital and support of the death penalty by Bush, the Republican presidential nominee.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, in identical 18-0 votes earlier this week, refused to recommend to Bush that he halt Wednesday's executions, the 27th and 28th in Texas this year. They were the first of six scheduled this month. “I'm not ready to die,” Cruz said in an interview last week. “That's what scares me the most.”

A senior airman who worked as a linguist at Kelly Air Base, Kelly Donovan, 24, of Rumson, N.J., was taking a walk the night of Aug. 7, 1988, when she was abducted by Cruz and Jerry Kemplin, who were driving home after a drinking party. She was raped by Cruz, who then stabbed her to death. “I made a mistake. I don't blame nobody. I take full responsibility,” Cruz said. “There's nothing I could do or say to bring the person back. There's nothing I could do or say to her family about how sorry I am.” Cruz blamed the attack on drug use that began for him at age 13.

He said he and Kemplin, who testified against him in exchange for a 65-year prison term, had taken LSD and drank “a couple of bottles of liquor.” “She was just someone,” he said of Donovan. “I don't expect nobody to have pity on me.”

Cruz's attorney, Jeff Pokorak, argued that a jury was not given enough information about his client's lifelong mental impairment. An IQ under 70 is considered at least mildly retarded, but prosecutors noted that Cruz previously had scored above 70.

Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed said a recently uncovered test, administered by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice when Cruz entered prison in 1989, showed his IQ at 83. “Our office ended up subpoenaing the records when the issue of his competency came up,” Reed said Wednesday. Pokorak said the report's timing and history were suspicious, since it did not surface when the prison turned over all of Cruz's records to a former attorney. “It was some kind of double-secret probation report,” Pokorak said dismissively.

Among the 25 states that allow the execution of retarded killers, some are considering laws prohibiting the practice. The Texas Legislature, which killed a bill last session outlawing the execution of someone whose IQ is below 65, will revisit the issue in 2001.

In the Dallas case, Roberson fatally stabbed James Boots, 79, and Boots' wife, Lillian, 75, during a home robbery. “I wasn't in a solid frame of mind,” he said, blaming the attack on his use of PCP and liquor. “I was just juiced up.”

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