US executes second death row inmate in two days
Alfred Bourgeois was convicted of physically and sexually abusing his two-year-old daughter before killing her
Alfred Bourgeois, 56, a Louisiana truck driver who killed his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, was put to death Friday night in the second federal execution carried out this week.
Bourgeois was executed at 8:21 p.m. Eastern time at the Federal Correctional Center in Terre Haute Indiana, according to the Associated Press. Bourgeois’s death by lethal injection comes after Brandon Bernard was executed on Thursday. Three more executions are planned before Donald Trump leaves office on Jan. 20.
Courts ruled that Burgeois had physically and sexually abused his two-year-old daughter before killing her by slamming her head four times against a truck’s window and dashboard after becoming angry about her toilet training.
Read More: Trump committed to carrying out federal executions before leaving office
In his last words, Bourgeois insisted that he didn’t kill or sexually abuse his baby girl.
“I ask God to forgive all those who plotted and schemed against me and planted false evidence,” Bourgeois said. “I did not commit this crime,” he added.
His child’s relatives released a joint statement calling Bourgeois a “monster.”
“None of us thought she would return from (visiting Bourgeois) in a casket,” the statement read. “It should not have taken 18 years to receive justice for our angel.”
According to court filings, Bourgeois gained temporary custody of the child, referred to as “JG” after a 2002 paternity suit from a Texas woman.
Over the next month, Bourgeois whipped the girl with an electrical cord, burned her feet with a cigarette lighter and hit her in the head with a plastic baseball bat so hard that her head swelled — then refused to seek medical treatment for her.
Read More: US carries out execution of Brandon Bernard during presidential transition
Shawn Nolan, one of Burgeois’s lawyers, told The Associated Press that Bourgeois met with his spiritual advisor Friday as he tried to make peace with the possibility of dying.
Bourgeois was the 10th death row inmate to be executed since President Donald Trump’s administration announced a revival of capital punishment for federal death row inmates in July 2019.
“The depravity and evil of this admin’s race to murder as many people on death row as possible is shocking & inhumane,” wrote Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. “We know how our carceral system works. The wealthy + privileged can buy freedom & leniency, the vulnerable are killed. It must stop. Abolish the death penalty.”
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