12 May 2022 :
Clarence Dixon was executed at the state prison in Florence on May 11 for the 1978 murder of 21-year-old Deana Bowdoin.
It took 11 minutes for the drugs to be administered, and Dixon, 66, Native American from the Navajo Nation, was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m. local time.
"I do and always will proclaim my innocence — now let's do this shit," Dixon said in his last statement.
Troy Hayden, a media witness from Fox News, said the execution team had trouble getting IVs into Dixon, who grimaced and appeared to be in pain while this was happening.
The officers took 25 minutes to put in the IVs, Hayden said. The execution team had to insert an IV into Dixon's groin. He appeared to lose consciousness a few minutes after the drugs were injected, Hayden said.
Arizona halted its use of capital punishment in 2014 after the execution of Joseph Wood drew scrutiny when officials and witnesses said it took two hours for him to die, and he gasped and snorted for much of that period. Dixon was the 1st man put to death by Arizona since the botched execution of Joseph Wood in 2014.
Legal challenges from Dixon's attorneys claiming the lethal injection drugs the state planned to use were expired prompted the Department of Corrections to order the creation of a new batch of compounded pentobarbital just two days before his execution.
Deana Bowdoin was found dead inside her apartment on Jan. 7, 1978. Her murder remained unsolved for more than 20 years. In 2001, DNA technology connected Clarence Dixon to Bowdoin's murder. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment hearing in January 2003, but was ultimately convicted a few years later.
Dixon becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Arizona and the 38th overall since Arizona resumed capital punishment in 1992. Dixon becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,546th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
