ROY WILLARD BLANKENSHIP EXECUTED FOR '78 SLAY

A GEORGIA killer who was sentenced to death for the sickening sex slaying of an elderly woman was executed last night. Roy Willard Blankenship, 55, "jerked his head several times throughout the procedure and muttered after the pentobarbital was injected into his veins," according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was pronounced dead at 8:37 p.m. yesterday.
Blankenship was put down like a dog for the 1978 slaying of Sarah Mims Bowen, 78, who died of heart failure while she was being raped and beaten to death in her Savannah apartment.
His last words before the procedure began were to the warden. He sneered and stammered: "I hope to see you again."
Blankenship had tried to fight his execution on the grounds pentobarbital was
unsafe and unreliable triggering pain and suffering. Georgia's lawyers said those claims were unfounded. Well, he's dead now.