Kenneth Earl Fults, 47, died at 7:37 p.m. at a state prison in
Jackson, Georgia, Attorney General Sam Olens said.
It was the fourth execution in Georgia this year and the 12th in the
United States.
Fults shot 19-year-old Cathy Bounds five times in the back of the
head after breaking into her home in Spalding County, according to a
court synopsis of the case.
Bounds begged for her life and offered Fults the rings off her
fingers before he wrapped more than 6 feet of electrical tape around
her head, forced her into a bedroom and placed her face down on her
bed, where he shot her, court documents said.
The Georgia pardons and parole board denied Fults' petition for
clemency late on Monday. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined
to issue a stay of execution.
 In the petition, which asked the board to commute Fults' sentence to
life without parole, his lawyers described the inmate as
intellectually disabled and deeply remorseful.
Fults pleaded guilty to charges of murder, burglary, kidnapping with
bodily injury and possession of a firearm in the commission of a
crime. A jury sentenced him to death in 1997.
The petition described Fults, a former gang member, as "the kid who
fell through the cracks," with an alcoholic, drug-addicted mother
who tried to abort him by drinking turpentine, an absent father and
an abusive stepfather.
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Three jurors who voted to give Fults the death sentence have
expressed concern about the fairness of the punishment because they
saw Fults' attorney sleeping during the sentencing trial, according
to the petition.
Fults told police he shot Bounds by accident while in a "dream-like
state," but police found a letter in his trailer describing the
killing in detail, court documents said.
The murder followed a week-long crime spree during which Fults tried
to kill his former girlfriend's new boyfriend with a handgun stolen
in an earlier burglary, according to court documents.
Fults accepted a final prayer and offered no statement before his
death, the state department of corrections said.
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Peter Cooney)
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