Alfredo Prieto, Serial Rapist, Murderer, Executed in Virginia

Alfredo Prieto, who was convicted of three murders and linked to six others, had an “utterly painless death”, the Washington Post reports.

Just after 9 p.m. (0100 UTC), Virginia executed 49-year-old Alfredo Prieto by lethal injection.

The courts’ rulings came as Oklahoma’s attorney general sought to stay three executions to examine the cause of a mix-up with its lethal drugs.

Prieto’s attorneys said at a court hearing Thursday they want more information about the drugs, which were obtained from Texas’ prison system, to ensure they won’t bring about a painful death.

About nine people attended the protest, which Rovnyak said was about expected considering the attendance at protests held against execution in the past. California officials agreed to send him to Virginia on the rationale that it was more likely to carry out the execution.

Prieto’s main lawyer, Robert Lee, complained that he had filed an 11th hour appeal on behalf of his client with the US Supreme Court, but that the execution was carried out before the U.S. highest court could render a decision.

A Virginia inmate was executed on Thursday after a judge rejected his claims about the efficacy of one of his execution drugs.

Authorities have linked Prieto to several other killings, but he was never prosecuted because he had already been sentenced to death.

Prieto was convicted in 2010 for the 1988 murders of Rachel Faver and her boyfriend Warren Fulton in Fairfax County, a Washington suburb.

Prieto’s attorneys filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to halt the execution until Virginia officials disclose more information about the supply of pentobarbital, which Virginia received from Texas because another sedative it planned to use expired.

A federal judge in Alexandria approved an order Wednesday temporarily blocking Prieto’s execution, and called for a hearing after his attorneys raised concerns about one of the lethal injection drugs that the state intends to use.

US states using the death penalty have faced crises over shortages of lethal injection drugs after European suppliers stopped supplying pentobarbital for use in executions.

Prieto had also asked the US Supreme Court to intervene, saying he is intellectually disabled, and therefore ineligible for the death penalty.

A Virginia jury indicted for the law violations, and a judge forced a capital punishment.

His lawyers argued the state should reconsider whether Prieto is intellectually disabled because the measure used during his 2008 trial was unconstitutional.

But the case has been transferred to a new judge in Richmond and it’s uncertain what action he will take. A DNA test also pointed to Prieto as the man who raped and killed a 24-year-old woman in Arlington.