Serial killer Joseph Franklin executed after hours of delay

KANSAS CITY -- White supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin was executed Wednesday morning after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final requests for a stay, the Missouri Department of Public Safety said.

The execution, which had been scheduled for shortly after midnight Wednesday, was delayed for hours because of court appeals. Franklin was administered a lethal injection at 6:07 a.m. CT (7:07 a.m. ET). He died ten minutes later.

Franklin refused his final meal and gave no final statement.

He was on death row for the 1977 murder of Gerald Gordon outside a synagogue in St. Louis. He was blamed for 22 killings between 1977 and 1980 in a bid to start a race war.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon denied clemency for Franklin on Monday, saying he had committed "merciless acts of violence, fueled by hate."

In addition to the killings, Franklin admitted to the attempted assassinations of Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt in 1978 and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan in 1980. Flynt, who was paralyzed by Franklin's bullet, has called for clemency for Franklin, saying "the government has no business at all being in the business of killing people."

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