Taking out the trash
[KXAN] A Louisiana truck driver who severely abused his 2-year-old daughter for weeks in 2002, then killed her by slamming her head repeatedly against a truck's windows and dashboard, was put to death Friday night in the second federal execution carried out this week.
Alfred Bourgeois, 56, was pronounced dead at 8:21 p.m. Eastern time at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. His lawyers had argued he had an IQ that put him in the intellectually disabled category, saying that should have made him ineligible for the death penalty.
In his last words, Bourgeois, strapped to a gurney, offered no apology and instead struck a deeply defiant tone, insisting that he neither killed nor sexually abused his baby girl.
"I ask God to forgive all those who plotted and schemed against me, and planted false evidence," he said. He added: "I did not commit this crime."
Later, the girl's relatives released a joint statement calling Bourgeois "a monster."
"None of us thought she would return from (visiting Bourgeois) in a casket," it said. "It should not have taken 18 years to receive justice for our angel." |