US executes burglar who killed five children in raid

A burglar who killed five children in 1992 by setting fire to a flat to destroy evidence has been executed.

William Garner died by lethal injection Tuesday morning at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

As he lay on the execution table, Garner held a dreadlock of hair from a woman friend and read a final statement from notebook paper held by the execution team leader, thanking several people as well as the state of Ohio. He said he was "heartily sorry".

"God bless everyone who has been robbed in this procedure," he said. "I thought I'd never be free, but I'm free now."

Garner broke into Addie Mack's Cincinnati apartment after stealing keys from her purse while she was in hospital. Six children, aged 8 to 13, were alone in the flat - which Garner knew when he threw a lit match on to a sofa.

Garner has said he thought the children would escape. Only one, 13-year-old Rod Mack, made it out alive.

The 37-year-old is the sixth person executed in Ohio this year and the 39th since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999.