LUCASVILLE, Ohio, March 10 (UPI) -- Ohio executed a convicted killer Thursday using a drug previously used to euthanize animals, the first state to use the drug alone, officials said.
Johnnie Baston, 37, was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m. EST at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, 222 miles south of Toledo, Ohio, after receiving a dose of the drug pentobarbital, similar to one used to euthanize horses.
His attorney and two brothers witnessed the execution, along with five reporters.
Baston was sentenced to death for the 1994 killing of Chong Mah, 53, a Toledo store owner -- a crime he denied for 17 years until a few days ago, when "he admitted to the murder," Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokesman Carlo Loparo told The (Toledo) Blade.
Thursday's execution went smoothly, "identical to previous procedures," Loparo told ABC News.
Shortly beforehand, Baston said he hoped his execution "will be the last," The Blade said.
He concluded by saying: "Dear Heavenly Father, I have sinned, and I repent of my sins. I pray for forgiveness. As I close my eyes on the light of this world, I hope to open my eyes to the light in heaven."
The newspaper said Baston's execution was closely monitored by 32 other states, each grappling with how to adjust their lethal-injection protocols after Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., announced it would no longer make sodium thiopental, the drug that Ohio and most other states used in lethal injections for more than a decade. Hospira was the only U.S. company making the drug.
Last year, Oklahoma became the first state to switch to another method, replacing sodium thiopental with pentobarbital in a three-drug combination.
Ohio is the only state using pentobarbital by itself.
Thirty-four states allow for capital punishment.
