Ohio Executes Man Who Killed, Raped 6-Month-Old

 

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At the time, Smith told police that he "didn't do anything."

"I'm not sick like that," he said.

At trial, Smith didn't testify in his own defense on the advice of his attorneys, even as prosecutors repeatedly referred to him as a "baby raper," showed pictures of Autumn's battered body and told jurors that her assault lasted up to a half-hour.

Expert witnesses for Smith testified that he might have accidentally suffocated the girl within three to five minutes of the assault.

The jury found Smith guilty of aggravated murder and sentenced him to die.

At an April 2 hearing in which Smith sought to have his death sentence reduced to life in prison, Smith told the Ohio Parole Board that he was sorry and wished he could ask Autumn for forgiveness.

Smith spent his last night eating pizza, fried fish, chocolate ice cream and soda, listening to the Cincinnati Reds play the St. Louis Cardinals, mailing letters and visiting with his daughter and niece, prison officials said.

Smith became the 51st inmate put to death in Ohio since it resumed executions in 1999. The state has enough of its lethal injection drug, the powerful sedative pentobarbital, to execute two other inmates before the supply expires. Eight more inmates are scheduled to die from November through mid-2015.

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Follow Amanda Lee Myers on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AmandaLeeAP