Ohio executes man after he tried to commit suicide

The execution of Lawrence Reynolds, 43, had been postponed a week after he was found unconscious in his death row cell.

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2010 (AFP) - A man convicted of strangling an elderly woman was executed in Ohio Tuesday, eight days after he tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose.

The execution of Lawrence Reynolds, 43, had been postponed a week after he was found unconscious in his death row cell and hospitalized to recover from an overdose of medication.

Local journalists said Reynolds had contested in the courts the method of his execution -- a lethal injection -- which he had said was cruel.

"To my brothers, I hope they will never have to walk these 15 steps I walked today. I have tried to bring attention to the futility and flagrantly flawed system we have today. Stop the madness," he said in a final letter addressed to his fellow death row inmates.

Reynolds was pronounced dead at 10:27 am (1427 GMT), prison officials said, after the US Supreme Court late Monday rejected his final appeal against his death sentence.

Reynolds was convicted for murdering a 67-year-old woman, after he broke into her house, stole 40 dollars and a blank check.

He was the fourth person to be put to death using a different kind of lethal injection in Ohio, which combines one powerful anesthetic instead of the three different products used elsewhere in the United States.