Oklahoma Death Row Inmate Benjamin Cole Given Lethal Injection After SC Rejected Last Minute Appeal

Execution of Oklahoma death row inmate Benjamin Cole, 57, was carried out on Thursday.

The Oklahoman reported that the convicted baby killer was executed even though he had brain damage. He had been diagnosed since trial as having paranoid schizophrenia.

Lethal injection was given to Cole, who was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of Brianna Victoria Cole. She was his nine-month-old daughter. Oklahoma Department of Corrections Chief of Operations Justin Farris told reporters that the execution began Thursday at 10:06 a.m., and Cole was pronounced dead at 10:22 a.m.

Fox News reported that he did not request a traditional last meal. Instead he was given a facility "religious meal." It consisted of vegetarian lasagna, salad, a tortilla and a fruit juice packet. He had referred to himself as "just a super-duper hyperbolic Jesus freak." He said that he hoped his spirit would return to his "Father in Heaven."

Brianna’s aunt, Donna Daniel, thanked Oklahoma for carrying out the death sentence and giving justice to her late niece. She described the child as a blond-haired and blue-eyed baby, according to CNN. Daniel told reporters that the baby "died a horrific death." She added that he "gets off easy and gets to get a little injection in his arm and go to sleep in his death." She noted that Cole did not give "Brianna the chance to ever grow up, to even have her first Christmas, to meet her family.”

Relatives who witnessed the execution were asked what they would do now. Bryan Young, Brianna’s uncle, said that they will "go back to normal.” Daniel added, “As normal as it can be." She noted that they should "not have to wait 20 years for a nine-month-old baby to get her justice.”

According to a statement, Cole’s attorney called him a “person with serious mental illness whose schizophrenia and brain damage” led to him killing his daughter.

According to a clemency petition in a failed bid for mercy, Cole’s legal team had insisted that he should not be put to death because his mental condition had deteriorated so much that he was not competent to be executed. But on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution.

His lawyers also unsuccessfully asked a state appeals court to compel his warden to refer his case for review to the district attorney to initiate a competency hearing.