Wayne Tompkins was pronounced dead at 6:32 p.m. Wednesday after he failed to get courts to listen to his claims of innocence. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of 15-year-old Lisa DeCarr, who disappeared from the Tampa home she shared with Tompkins and her mother on March 24, 1983.

Her mom and others thought she had run away, but her body was found a year later under the home's porch. She had been strangled with the belt of her pink bathrobe.

Despite a flurry of last-minute court appeals, Tompkins' attorneys were unable to get a court to issue a stay so they could perform more DNA testing.