Photo: Man who raped and beat a woman to death with a dumbbell executed in Alabama

A 43-year-old man convicted of raping and
beating a woman to death with a dumbbell has
been executed by lethal injection in Alabama.
Christopher Eugene Brooks was convicted of the
capital murder of 23-year-old Jo Deann Campbell,
a woman he met when they worked at a camp in
upstate New York.
According to the court record, Ms Campbell was
seen speaking to Brooks at a restaurant where
she worked on 30 December 1992, and later told a
friend someone was spending the night in her
living room. The next day, police found her
partially clothed body under the bed in her
apartment in the Birmingham suburb of
Homewood.
Prosecutors said she had been bludgeoned with
an 8lbs dumbbell and sexually assaulted. Brooks
was pronounced dead at 6.38pm, after the US
Supreme Court had denied a last-minute defence
request for a stay of execution.
His final words were: "I hope this brings closure
to everybody. I will take you with me in my
heart... I love y'all. Bye. I love y'all."
A prison chaplain held his hand and prayed with
him as the first drug, a sedative, was
administered. It was the first execution since
Alabama announced in 2014 that it was changing
two of the three drugs it uses for lethal injections
- including switching to the sedative midazolam.
A jury convicted Brooks in 1993 of capital murder,
robbery, burglary and rape.
His bloody fingerprint was found on a door handle
in Ms Campbell's bedroom and a palm print was
found on her ankle, according to court records.
Brooks was later found with her car keys and had
cashed her paycheck.
Lawyers for Brooks had argued another man who
was at the apartment that night could have
committed the killing.
Corrine Campbell said her sister was very
trusting, but had no idea whom she had invited to
stay when Brooks arrived uninvited.
"She was young, energetic, bubbly, hard-working.
The young lady had no enemies." she said.