JARRATT -- Jerry Terrell Jackson was executed by injection Thursday night for the rape and murder of an 88-year-old Williamsburg woman he suffocated with a pillow and robbed of $60.
Jackson, 30, was pronounced dead at 9:14 p.m., said officials at the Greensville Correctional Center where Virginia executions are carried out.
Asked if he had any last words, Jackson shook his head, indicating no.
It was the first execution in Virginia using the sedative pentobarbital as the first of three drugs administered in lethal injections. Virginia and most states traditionally used another drug that is no longer available.
Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections, said there were no complications.
Jackson was escorted into the execution chamber by execution team members at 8:53 p.m. He was quickly ushered onto the gurney and strapped in.
At 8:55 p.m., curtains were closed, blocking the view of witnesses while an IV line was inserted in each of his arms.
After the curtains reopened, Jackson declined to make a last statement and the first of three chemicals started flowing.
His chest moved as he breathed, his right toe appeared to tap and he moved his head a bit, but the movements quickly ceased. He was pronounced dead by a doctor who was remotely monitoring his heartbeat.
Jackson was sentenced to death for the slaying of Ruth Phillips in August 2001. Jackson broke into her apartment, where she lived alone, assaulted her and fled with her automobile.
Her partially clothed body was discovered by her son, Richard Phillips, who went to check on her when she failed to attend church and did not answer her phone.
Jackson's lawyers did not contest his guilt but challenged his death sentence in unsuccessful appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Bob McDonnell.
They said Jackson's trial lawyers failed to interview and present testimony from Jackson's brother and sister about the physical, psychological and sexual abuse Jackson suffered as a child. They argued that the testimony could have persuaded at least one juror to vote for a sentence of life without parole instead of death.
The Virginia Attorney General's Office, however, countered that the jury heard a great deal of evidence about the abuse suffered by Jackson and that testimony from his brother and sister would only have been cumulative.
McDonnell turned down Jackson's request for clemency last week, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal Thursday afternoon.
Traylor said Jackson spent his last day in part by visiting with family members. No surviving family members of Ruth Phillips witnessed the execution.
Jackson's was the 109th execution carried out in Virginia since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume in 1976. His death leaves Virginia's death-row population at 10.
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