The Trump administration pushed ahead with its unprecedented string of post-election federal executions on Friday by putting to death a man from Louisiana for the gruesome death of her two-year-old daughter in 2002, the Associated Press reported.
Alfred Bourgeois, a truck driver from LaPlace was convicted of capital murder in 2004 for torturing his baby girl sexually, physically, and emotionally then killing her by slamming her head repeatedly against his truck's dashboard and windows.
His daughter's toilet training allegedly infuriated Bourgeois, and he would sometimes force her daughter to sleep on a training toilet.
It was during a trucking run to Corpus Christi, Texas, that he ended up killing the girl.
The 56-year old death row inmate was pronounced dead at 8:21 p.m. at a federal detention facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said.
He was the second person executed this week by lethal injection at a detention facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. An application to the U.S. Supreme Court to delay its execution order was junked earlier Friday.
As a deadly dose of pentobarbital started flowing through his veins, Bourgeois gave his spiritual adviser a thumbs up, to which his adviser raised his own thumb in reply while holding a bible.
Bourgeois grimaced in pain and exhaled rhythmically as his stomach quivered uncontrollably. After five minutes, his entire body became still. He was motionless for about 20 minutes before he was pronounced dead.
His legal counsels had insisted that Bourgeois had an intelligence quotient that placed him in the intellectually disabled category, claiming his case should have made him unqualified for the capital punishment.
Several appeals courts have ruled that neither proof nor criminal law on intellectual disability supports the claims by Bourgeois´ attorneys.
Bourgeois became the 10th offender put to death since federal executions were restarted under incumbent President Donald Trump in July following a 17-year suspension.
On Thursday, Brandon Bernard was executed by lethal injection for his involvement in a 1999 killing of a couple from Iowa after he and other teenage gang members abducted and robbed Todd and Stacie Bagley in Texas.
In his final words, Bourgeois showed no remorse and instead struck a deeply defiant tone without offering no apologies, insisting that he neither killed nor sexually abused his daughter.
"I ask God to forgive all those who plotted and schemed against me, and planted false evidence," AP quoted him as saying. "I did not commit this crime."
The girl's relatives released a joint statement calling Bourgeois "a monster."
