MCALESTER, Okla., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- An Oklahoma killer was executed Tuesday for murdering a security guard during the theft of a wrecker from an auto auction 12 years ago.
Ernest Marvin Carter, 36, was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection for the Jan. 28, 1990, murder of security guard Eugene Manowski in Oklahoma City.
In his final statement, Carter thanked his attorneys and told his family that he loved them.
"I'll be with y'all on the other side," he said. "I'm going now. God bless you sweetheart."
His witnesses included his mother, sister, a friend, and two spiritual advisers. Ten members of the victim's family were also witnesses.
In November, the Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended clemency for Carter but Gov. Frank Keating rejected the petition this week.
Keating and his staff met with attorneys in the case, reviewed the trial transcript and evidence, and ordered a witness re-interviewed, according to Dan Mahoney, the governor's spokesman.
"All of that satisfied the governor and made him confident that Mr. Carter was guilty of the murder and should be executed as per the jury's recommendation," he said.
Carter always claimed he was innocent and his attorney argued that he was not guilty of the crime beyond a moral certainty.
Keating has received four clemency recommendations in capital cases since taking office in 1995, but granted only one. Last year, he commuted the death sentence of a murderer to life without parole.
Carter's co-defendant, Charles Summers, received a life sentence for a felony murder conviction.
Carter was the seventh killer executed this year in Oklahoma.
