Florida executes convicted child rapist and murderer

STARKE, Fla., July 11 (UPI) -- A man was executed in Florida Thursday for the 1994 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, the 24th execution in the U.S. in 2014.

Eddie Wayne Davis, 45, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1995 for beating Kimberly Waters to death and dumping her body into a commercial trash bin after raping the young girl.

Davis claimed to have a medical condition that would make the lethal injection painful and appealed for a delay, but was denied by the Florida State Supreme Court. Davis was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m. Thursday after is chest heaved for roughly five minutes. Although at one point Davis began muttering to himself, authorities say there was no sign he was in pain.

Davis' final meal was chop steak with onions and gravy, home fries, Brussels sprouts, corn, cherry ice cream for dessert and Dr. Pepper.

Davis was put to death a month after the executions of three death row inmates across the U.S. in a 24-hour span. Those executions occurred about six weeks after Clayton Lockett's famously botched 45-minute execution on April 29.

There are currently 3,046 death row inmates in the United States and over 400 in Florida.