An American retired soldier, sentenced to death for the 2009 murder of a woman with whom he had a relationship, was executed on Tuesday in the state of Missouri, in the central USA.

David Hozier, 69, was executed by lethal injection. He was pronounced dead at 18:11 (local time).

This is the second execution since the beginning of the year in Missouri and the seventh in the USA, in addition to the one that was canceled in extremis on February 28 in Idaho (northwest), due to the inability to administer the lethal solution to a death row inmate within the legal deadline.

David Hozier, a former firefighter who also served in the Navy, was convicted in 2013 of murdering Angela Gilpin and her husband. He pleaded not guilty from the start.

The state’s Republican governor, Mike Parson, rejected last-ditch pleas for clemency, notably from Missouri’s Democratic lawmakers, arguing that David Hozier had a brain injury when he committed the murders, something jurors failed to consider.

David Hozier “killed Angela and Rodney Gilpin in their apartment in Jefferson City, Missouri, during a fit of jealousy,” the governor said yesterday Monday, pointing out that although he was not convicted of his wife’s murder, the jury considered the perpetrator of both murders. He noted the convict’s lack of remorse and that “no court has ever found error in his conviction.”

A total of 24 executions took place in the US in 2023, all using lethal injection solutions.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states. In another six (Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee) a moratorium on executions is observed, by virtue of governors’ decisions.