Botched execution leaves killer gasping for TWO HOURS before dying: Murderer who'd appealed over secret drug cocktail smiled before 'disturbing' death that victims' families say he DESERVED

Double murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood was pronounced dead at 3.49pm, an hour and 57 minutes after his execution began on Wednesday

Attorneys briefly got Arizona Supreme Court to consider halting it by saying his 1st Amendment rights were violated by secrecy of drugs used

The execution was rescheduled for 1pm, the third in Arizona in 2014

The execution comes after several other botched jobs



Condemned: Arizona double murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood was executed on Wednesday afternoon - but took nearly two hours to die



A murderer who was sentenced to death for gunning down his former girlfriend and her father died nearly two hours after his execution started on Wednesday, Arizona officials have said.



As Joseph Rudolph Wood gasped for air, his lawyers filed an emergency appeal in federal court demanding that it be stopped. The appeal said Wood was 'gasping and snorting for more than an hour'.



Attorney General Tom Horne's office says Wood was pronounced dead at 3.49pm - an hour and 57 minutes after the execution started.

Wood was sentenced to death for killing Debra Dietz and her father, Eugene Dietz, in 1989 at the family's automotive shop in Tucson.

A relative of Wood's victims said she did not believe the killer had suffered - especially compared to the victims.



'You don't know what excruciating is,' Jeanne Brown told KTLA after the execution. 'What’s excruciating is seeing your dad laying there in a pool of blood, seeing you sister laying there in a pool of blood. This man deserved it. And I shouldn’t really call him a man.'



Before the murders, Wood and Debra Dietz, 29, had a tumultuous relationship in which he periodically assaulted her. Dietz tried to end their relationship and got an order of protection against Wood.

On the day of the shooting, Wood went to the auto shop and waited for Dietz's father, who disapproved of his daughter's relationship with Wood, to get off the phone. Once the father, 55, hung up, Wood pulled out a revolver, shot him in the chest and then smiled.

Wood then turned his attention toward Debra Dietz, who was trying to telephone for help.



Wood grabbed her by the neck and put his gun to her chest. She pleaded with him to spare her life. An employee heard Wood say, 'I told you I was going to do it, I have to kill you.' He then called her an expletive and fired two shots in her chest.

Relief: Jeanne Brown, whose sister and father were killed by Wood in 1989, is pictured at a news conference after the execution as her husband Richard Brown listens. She said that Wood had deserved to die

Inhumane: Arizona Republic justice reporter Michael Kiefer describes how Wood gasped and breathed heavily before he died. Media witnesses agreed they had never seen an execution like it



On Wednesday, Wood looked around the death chamber and glanced at the doctors as they made preparations for his execution, locating the proper veins and inserting two lines into his arms.



Wood then uttered his final words, smiled at the victim's family members and made eye contact with a deacon.



Just after declaring that he was at peace with his death, he smiled at the deacon, but for a second, a subtle look of panic took over his face.

Officials administered the lethal drugs at 1:52 p.m. Wood's eyes closed. About 10 minutes later, the gasping began.

Wood's jaw dropped, his chest expanded, and he let out a gasp. The gasps repeated every five to 12 seconds. They went on and on, hundreds of times. An administrator checked on him a half-dozen times.



Troy Hayden, who witnessed the execution as he covered it for KSAZ , likened Wood’s breathing to a 'fish gulping for air'.

'It was tough for everybody in that room,' he said.



Wood could be heard snoring loudly when an administrator turned on a microphone to inform the gallery that Wood was still sedated, despite the audible sounds.

As the episode dragged on, Wood's lawyers frantically drew up an emergency legal appeal, asking federal and state courts to step in and stop the execution.

'He has been gasping for more than an hour,' the lawyers pleaded in their filings. 'He is still alive.'

Praying: Robert Hungerford, of Phoenix, prays as he and a group of about a dozen death penalty opponents protest the execution of Joseph Rudolph Wood at the state prison in Florence, Arizona on Wednesday The Arizona Supreme Court convened an impromptu telephone hearing with a defense lawyer and attorney for the state to decide what to do.

Wood took his last breath at 3:37 p.m. Twelve minutes later, Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles L. Ryan declared Wood dead.

The state court was informed of the death while its hearing was underway. It took one hour and 57 minutes for Wood's execution to be completed, and Wood was gasping for more than an hour and a half of that time. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer had told the Department of Corrections to review the process, saying she was concerned by the length of time it took to carry out the injections. Still, she said, there was nothing unlawful about the death. She said: 'One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer. 'This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims — and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family.' After the death, a federal judge ordered officials to preserve all physical evidence in Wood's execution for an investigation.

Desperate: Arizona's highest court on Wednesday temporarily halted the execution of the condemned inmate so it could consider a last-minute appeal. Wood's death was one of a number of botched executions

The lengthy execution quickly re-ignited the death penalty debate as critics denounced it as cruel and unusual punishment and said it raised grave questions about the two-drug combination Arizona uses for lethal injections.

Wood had waged an intense, last-minute legal battle that challenged the state over key information about who supplies the drugs and how they are administered. The execution came after the U.S. Supreme Court denied several appeals seeking details about the state's execution methods. There have been several controversial executions recently, including that of an Ohio inmate in January who snorted and gasped during the 26 minutes it took him to die.

Arizona's highest court temporarily halted the execution of the condemned inmate Wednesday morning so it could consider a last-minute appeal before soon allowing it to proceed. The appeal focused on arguments that Wood, 55, received inadequate legal representation at his sentencing, along with a challenge about the secrecy of the lethal injection drugs. The execution occurred amid new scrutiny nationwide over lethal injections after several controversial executions. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Arizona to carry out its third execution in the last year following a closely watched First Amendment fight over the secrecy issue. Going forward: A fence surrounds the state prison in Florence, Arizona where the execution of Joseph Rudolph Wood was scheduled to take place on Wednesday

Wood's lawyers used a new legal tactic in which defense attorneys claim their clients' First Amendment rights are being violated by the government's refusal to reveal details about lethal injection drugs.

Wood's lawyers were seeking information about the two-drug combination that finally killed him, including the makers of the drugs.

A federal appeals court ruled in Wood's favor before the U.S. Supreme Court put the execution back on track.



The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision marked the first time an appeals court has acted to delay an execution based on the issue of drug secrecy, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

The 9th Circuit gave new hope to death penalty opponents. While many death row inmates have made the same First Amendment argument as Wood, the Supreme Court has not been receptive to the tactic. The court has ruled against them each time the transparency issue has come before the justices.

States have refused to reveal details such as which pharmacies are supplying lethal injection drugs and who is administering them because of concerns over harassment.

An Ohio inmate in January snorted and gasped during the 26 minutes it took him to die. In Oklahoma, an inmate died of a heart attack minutes after prison officials halted the process of his execution because the drugs weren't being administered properly.

The fight over the Arizona execution has also attracted attention because of a dissenting judge's comments that made a case for a firing squad as a more humane method of execution.

'The guillotine is probably best but seems inconsistent with our national ethos. And the electric chair, hanging and the gas chamber are each subject to occasional mishaps. The firing squad strikes me as the most promising,' wrote Alex Kozinski, the 9th Circuit's chief judge.



'Using drugs meant for individuals with medical needs to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and peaceful - like something any one of us might experience in our final moment.'

