Georgia man executed after delay
Convicted of killing woman in 1985
JACKSON, Georgia (AP) -- A death row inmate apologized "for everything I did" before he was put to death Thursday for slitting a woman's throat in 1985.
The slaying occurred nine months after Robert K. Hicks was released from prison on a rape conviction.
"I would like to apologize for everything I did. I'm sorry. God forgive me," the 47-year-old Hicks said moments before the lethal injection was administered.
His last words were, "Come get me," after a clergyman said a short prayer.
The Georgia Supreme Court had put the execution on hold for a day, then decided 5-2 Thursday to allow it to proceed. Also Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court without comment denied a final appeal.
Hicks allegedly stabbed Toni Strickland Rivers, 28, eight times with a pocket knife, slit her throat and left her body -- nude from the waist down -- in a field near Griffin, about 35 miles south of Atlanta.
Hicks did not know the woman and had followed her from a rural grocery store where she was using a pay phone.
The victim's mother, father and sister witnessed the execution, but declined comment afterward. Her brother-in-law, Cary Grubbs, was on the prison grounds as the execution took place.
"For him to apologize to us meant a huge amount. We had never had any sense of remorse, any sense of responsibility until the last day," Grubbs said.
During the trial, Hicks unsuccessfully pleaded insanity. More recently, he has said he was innocent and that a drug dealer and another man committed the murder.
Hicks' prosecutor, David Fowler, dismissed those claims as "desperate."
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