Killer Executed in North Carolina

A man who stabbed his girlfriend to death with a knife and a broken broomstick was put to death by injection Friday.

Willie Ervin Fisher, 39, was pronounced dead at 9:21 p.m., Corrections Department spokeswoman Tracy Little said.

Earlier in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block Fisher’s execution. A state judge late Thursday had delayed the execution, then set for 2 a.m. Friday, saying Gov. Mike Easley might have had a conflict of interest when he denied Fisher clemency.

Easley, a former attorney general, had represented the state during Fisher’s appeals. The state Supreme Court later lifted the stay.

Fisher made a videotaped appeal for clemency that was sent to Easley earlier this week.

“I can’t express enough how sorry I am, how I regret everything that has happened,” Fisher said. He said he blamed only himself for Angela Johnson’s death, but if allowed to live, he said, he would work behind bars “doing God’s will, not my own.”

Fisher also asked Johnson’s mother for forgiveness.