The Associated Press
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The state of South Dakota carried out its first execution in 60 years Wednesday night, taking the life of Elijah Page, 25, for a brutal torture slaying committed in 2000.
Page, of Athens, Texas, died at 10:11 p.m. from a lethal injection administered at the South Dakota State Penitentiary.
He pleaded guilty to killing Chester Allan Poage, 19, of Spearfish, who was stabbed, beaten with rocks and forced to drink hydrochloric acid during a robbery of his home. The torture lasted two to three hours.
Page gave up his court appeals and requested to die.
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He was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, leather straps were around him and a sheet was around the lower half of his body. Page had intravenous tubes in both arms.
"He blinked but he showed no emotion whatsoever," media witness Bill Harlan, a reporter with the Rapid City Journal, said.
"It was very clinical. It was a very bright room," Harlan said.
Warden Doug Weber asked Page if he had any last words, and he said an emphatic "No."
"Elijah Page had the ultimate penalty for the ultimate crime," said Dottie Poage, the victim's mother. She said she was proud of the prosecutor, the state, the penitentiary staff and Gov. Mike Rounds.
"I'm proud to be an American," she said.
Death penalty protesters gathered outside the penitentiary, displaying signs with sayings such as "Choose life for Page" and "End the death penalty."
Two death penalty supporters' signs said "Justice" and "Remember Chester."
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Gov. Mike Rounds postponed Page's planned Aug. 29, 2006, execution over concerns about a conflict in state law that has since been changed.
Page is among a handful of people his age or younger put to death since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1979. His case also is unusual because a judge, not a jury, imposed a death sentence -- and he asked to die.
Page, who was entitled to appeals that could have lasted many more years, still had the legal right to resume those petitions even moments before the execution.
Page's regular visitors included attorney Mike Butler and family members.
"I love him with all my heart," Page's father, Kenneth Chapman of Texas, said before the execution Wednesday.
Page and another death row inmate, Briley Piper, 25, of Anchorage, Alaska, pleaded guilty to killing Poage. A third man, Darrell Hoadley, 26, of Lead, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
According to testimony, the three killed Poage so there would be no other witness to the theft of a Chevy Blazer, stereo, television, coin collection, video game and other items from Poage's home in Spearfish.
Dottie Poage said she took her children to church and taught them faith, morals and trust. She said her son came across three people that he wanted to be friends with. "Who would ever do something like this to a friend?" she said.
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The last person execution in South Dakota was April 8, 1947. George Sitts was electrocuted in Sioux Falls for the Jan. 24, 1946, slayings of state criminal agent Thomas Matthews and Butte County Sheriff Dave Malcolm near Spearfish.
For his last meal, Page requested steak, jalapeno poppers, onion rings, a salad, lemon iced tea, coffee and ice cream.
