2 Men Executed; Neither Made Appeals : Crime: Delaware inmate tells wife: ‘I’m going home, babe.’ Murderer in Arizona gives thumbs-up to his minister before lethal injection.

James Allen Red Dog received final rites from a medicine man, told his wife “I’m going home, babe” and was executed by injection Wednesday for slitting a man’s throat in a drunken rage.

Hours earlier, Arizona executed John George Brewer, who admitted that he strangled his pregnant fiancee, then had sex with the corpse.

Neither man made a legal appeal to save his life. The executions were the second for each state since resuming capital punishment.

After a prayer ceremony with a medicine man, Red Dog, a Sioux, said: “I’d like to thank my family and friends and (attorney Edward) Pankowski for supporting me and all others who treated me with kindness.” As the lethal dose of drugs was administered, Red Dog choked and told his wife, Bonnie, “I’m going home, babe.”

Red Dog, 39, had killed at least twice and was living in Delaware under the federal witness protection program when he murdered Hugh Pennington, an acquaintance, in February, 1991. He then kidnaped a woman and raped her.

Red Dog, who was from Poplar, Mont., had been placed in the witness program in 1988 after testifying about prison gangs and the American Indian Movement. He was sentenced to death last year after pleading no contest to first-degree murder, rape, kidnaping and weapons charges.

Brewer, 27, was executed 1 1/2 hours after the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 to lift a stay imposed by a federal appeals judge.

Brewer admitted that he beat and strangled 23-year-old Rita Brier, who was 22 weeks pregnant, in their Flagstaff apartment in 1987.

Brewer gave a thumbs-up sign to his minister just before the lethal injection, and he died within a minute.

His quick, quiet death contrasted with the 11-minute spectacle that led Arizona voters to switch the state’s method of execution from the gas chamber. Triple murderer Donald Eugene Harding had struggled and gulped in loud, rasping breaths as he was put to death by cyanide gas last year.

Red Dog repeatedly had said he wanted to die and his family supported his decision, saying in a statement that he was going to his death “with pride and dignity . . . and proud that he’s giving in return for what he took--a life.”

Unlike Red Dog, Brewer’s family opposed his death sentence.

Arizona’s Board of Pardons and Paroles refused to intervene Tuesday after hearing Brewer’s mother plead for his life.

“I’ve been trying to prevent him from committing suicide ever since he was a small child. Today I was trying to prevent him from committing suicide again,” Elsie Brewer told the board.

Brewer, however, said he felt death was “an appropriate penalty” for his crime.