© SkynewsHogan apologised to his victim's family before he died
Oklahoma has executed an inmate with a lethal injection of a drug that is usually used to euthanise animals.
The drug has sparked controversy over pain the prisoner may suffer while dying.
Kenneth Hogan, 52, admitted stabbing 21-year-old friend Lisa Stanley in 1988, but said he did so in self-defence after she lunged at him with a knife.
Prosecutors said Hogan stabbed the woman more than 25 times in the back, neck and chest, then knocked over several objects in her Oklahoma City apartment to make it appear as though she had been robbed.
Hogan finally confessed.
"I am guilty for what I'm here for, and I take full responsibility for my actions," Hogan said in his final statement in the death chamber.
"And to Lisa's family, I say I'm sorry that I can't undo it.
"And I'm sorry to my family for all the pain I've caused," he said.
He received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
The mix of drugs included a lethal dose of pentobarbital, an anaesthetic commonly used to euthanise animals.
Earlier this month, the state used the cocktail for the first time to put Michael Lee Wilson to death, who said before dying that he could feel his "whole body burning" as the injection took effect.
Hogan also reacted to the chemicals in his final moments.
"There is a chemical taste in my mouth," he said after receiving the injection.
"I am going, I am going, I am going."
Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire, put to death on 16 January with a different, untested mix of drugs, struggled and gasped for air for some 25 minutes in an unusually prolonged execution, according to witnesses.
U.S. states face diminishing stocks of the drugs previously used in lethal injections after European drug makers refused to supply substances to be used in executions.
They have used new cocktails, but controversy has erupted over the changes in protocol, including objections to the untested nature of new mixes.
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