A man convicted of raping and beating an 86-year-old woman to death in 1980 and who became a published poet in jail was executed late Thursday in Alabama, prison officials said.
Darrell Grayson, 46, was declared dead from the lethal injection at 2316 GMT, a prison official at Holman, Alabama, said.
In his final moments, Grayson flashed the peace sign with his hands and uttered "peace," while smiling at all those who had come to witness his execution, the official said.
His victim's relatives said in a statement that with Grayson's death the "family has seen the final chapter of a 27-year struggle."
Grayson was put to death hours after the US Supreme Court refused to grant a stay of execution.
Grayson was sentenced to death for the December 24, 1980 murder of Annie Laura Orr, 86, whose house he and a friend, Victor Kennedy, broke into in a late-night drunken stupor to steal her money.
Orr's body was found the next morning covered in bruises and with several broken ribs. She died of suffocation after hours of being repeatedly raped and beaten. A pillow was found duct-taped over her face.
Arrested the following day, Grayson first confessed to the murder, then recanted, claiming he was so drunk he could not remember anything from the night of the murder.
Two alleged witnesses said Thursday Grayson had stayed with them throughout the night of December 23-24.
An African-American, Grayson was tried by an all-white jury. He was defended by a divorce lawyer with no prior experience in criminal trials.
Grayson and Kennedy were sentenced to death in 1982. Kennedy was put to death in 1999.
Despite repeated urgings by defense lawyers, no DNA analysis was ever carried out on the blood and sperm found in the victim's bedroom.
While in prison, Grayson turned to poetry and published several collections of poems, the latest of which, "Against Time," came out in 2005.
He also headed the "Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty," grouping inmates and anti-capital punishment advocates.
