Crime: murder Victim: Nancy Weiler, Kristina Weiler, Katherine Weiler
Blood poured from the chest and mouth of convicted killer Allen Lee Davis as he was electrocuted early Thursday in Florida's first use of its new electric chair. Davis let out two muffled screams from behind a chin mask after four guards strapped him into the electric chair. As the 2,300 volts of electricity began to surge through the metal cap on his head, Davis jerked back against the oak chair, his fists clenched. A tiny trickle of blood began to stain his white long-sleeved dress shirt as witnesses watching the execution behind glass gasped in horror. Corrections officers in the death chamber looked at each other in alarm, their eyes wide. None of them moved, but watched as the blood thickened. The blood continued to seep, leaking through the buckle holes in the thick leather restraints. It created a stain 6 to 8 inches in diameter across Davis' chest, from below his breastbone to nearly the top of his dark blue dress pants and black belt. A small spot of blood was visible under his right collar and when doctors lifted up the death mask to check his eyelids, his mouth appeared to be bleeding. The black-hooded executioner flipped the switch at 7:05 and power was shut off at 7:07, corrections officials said. Davis' chest convulsed at least twice before two prison medical officials declared him dead at 7:15 a.m. Davis, 54, who had to be wheeled into the death chamber because he has trouble walking, was sentenced to die for the 1982 beating and shooting deaths of Nancy Weiler and her two young daughters during an attempted burglary at Weiler's Jacksonville home. Davis, at 350 pounds, was one of several large inmates whom prison officials considered last year when they replaced Florida's infamous 76-year-old electric chair known as "Ol' Sparky'' with a near-replica that has been tested to withstand heftier inmates. Although Ol' Sparky withstood legal challenges and served as the method of death for famous serial killers like Ted Bundy, prison officials said the prisoner-built relic was showing its age. The oak seat was cracked, and one of its arms was ready to snap off. In a bid to stay his execution, Davis argued that prison officials failed to update the chair's electrical apparatus and that electrocution in the chair would be long and painful, in violation of the state and U.S. constitutions. Florida is one of just four states to rely solely on the electric chair as a means of execution. Several state Supreme Court justices have called on lawmakers to consider using lethal injection, calling the electric chair "a spectacle whose time has passed.'' The Supreme Court twice rejected Davis' arguments but is requiring the Department of Corrections to certify before each electrocution that the chair is working properly. Since 1990, fire and smoke have twice erupted during executions, and guidelines were developed to prevent such events. Davis argued in his latest appeal that the state was not following its own rules because it failed to replace worn, faulty or damaged electrical equipment. Davis also argued that death in the chair could come slower for him because his fat tissue would be more resistant to the electrical current than that of an average-size man. ```````````````````````````````````