John Hicks, 49, died by injection at 10:20 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.

John Hicks, 49, died by injection at 10:20 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.
On Aug. 2, 1985, he strangled his mother-in-law Maxine Armstrong to steal her money. Hicks returned the next day and suffocated his 5-year-old stepdaughter Brandy Green, so she couldn't tell police he had been at the mother-in-law's apartment.
Hicks, who turned himself in to police after the 1985 murders, tried to avoid the death penalty by arguing that his cocaine use made him lose control.
Hicks becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Ohio and the 55th in the USA and the 999th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.