A inmate in Oklahoma who spent 36 years on death row was executed on Thursday morning for the 1985 murder of schoolteacher Linda Reaves. Bigler Stouffer II, 79, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and was declared dead at 10:16 a.m., 16 minutes after the scheduled start of the execution. “My request is that my father forgive them,” Stouffer said as his final words. “Thank you.” Stouffer had long maintained his innocence but was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003.

At a parole board hearing in November, he said that Reaves had been dead when he arrived at the home of her boyfriend, Doug Ivens. Ivens was shot as the two men scuffled over a gun, but survived and testified against Stouffer. His final appeal for an emergency stay of execution was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court less than two hours before his death. He and his attorneys had argued that the three-drug cocktail posed a risk of unconstitutional pain and suffering. Stouffer was the first person killed by the state since the botched execution of John Grant in October, who convulsed and vomited as he died.