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 Johnny Dale Black, 48, was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m. (0008 GMT)
at a state prison in McAlester, Oklahoma, state Department of
Corrections spokesman Jerry Massey said.
Black was convicted of first-degree murder and battery in the 1998
killing of Bill Pogue, 54, a horse trainer from Ringling, Oklahoma.
Black had been looking for someone else, according to court
documents.
Black was one of five men who went out hunting for a man who had
threatened one of the five because he had been having an affair with
the man's soon to be ex-wife, according to court documents.
The group was looking for the man's black sport-utility vehicle and
instead encountered Pogue, who had gone to a convenience store with
his son-in-law, Richard Lewis, to buy chewing tobacco and was
driving home in a black SUV.
The group of five men stopped their compact car in front of the SUV
and attacked Pogue and Lewis, beating them and stabbing them more
than 10 times each, according to court documents.
Pogue died later from his wounds, while Lewis survived the attack,
according to court documents.
The morning after the fight, Black fled to Texas, where he was later
arrested and confessed to the crime, according to court documents.
Black said he did not remember stabbing Lewis and said he was afraid
for his brothers, who were part of the group in the fight, and did
not intend to kill Pogue.
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Massey said that Black's mother, his two attorneys and four members
of the victim's family witnessed the execution.
"This isn't accomplishing anything. It's just another death, another
family destroyed. I love everybody. I love you, you can count on
that, Mama," Black said in a final statement, Massey said.
Black was also convicted of manslaughter in 1984 in the shooting
death of Cecil Martin.
Black was the sixth person executed in Oklahoma and the 39th in the
United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center, down from 43 executions in each of the past two years.
The number of executions in the United States has been on a decline
overall since 1999, when 98 people were executed.
(Writing by Brendan O'Brien; editing by David Bailey, Cynthia Osterman and Paul Simao)
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