Washington: The US state of Georgia on Wednesday executed a former Navy sailor for the gruesome 1992 murder of a fellow shipmate, authorities said.
Travis Hittson had appealed for clemency but to no avail.
He was pronounced dead at 8:14 pm (0114 GMT Thursday) by lethal injection at a prison in Jackson, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Hittson had been scheduled to die about an hour earlier, but his execution was delayed while the state waited for all his appeals to be exhausted.
He accepted a final prayer and recorded a final statement, which prison officials did not share publicly.
Hittson had helped a superior officer, Edward Vollmer, kill and dismember fellow sailor Conway Utterbeck in 1992.
Earlier this month, his lawyers argued that Hittson's lower rank, alcoholism and desperation for approval made him vulnerable to Vollmer's influence.
But the clemency effort did not move forward, according to the Death Penalty Information centre (DPIC).
There are now 74 men on death row in Georgia, which suspended executions for several months in 2015 in response to a controversy over the drugs used in its lethal injections.
The United States executed 28 people last year, the lowest number since 1991.
Georgia executes US veteran for murder
Mourning family: Anita Hunt, facing, a family friend of Travis Clinton Hittson, hugs Travis' mother Pat Hittson just after he was executed Wednesday evening . (AP Photo)
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