Joseph Timothy Keel, 39, was executed by lethal injection...

Joseph Timothy Keel, 39, was executed by lethal injection at Central Prison in Raleigh. He was pronounced dead at 2:18 a.m. Keel confessed to killing Johnny Simmons the night of July 10, 1990. Defense lawyer Jay Ferguson said an expert pegged his IQ at 70, the level below which the law defines as retarded. But prosecutors argued that Keel's IQ was 87 and that he had shown no mental problems in prison, where he earned a high-school equivalency certificate and took religion courses. Keel becomes the 5th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in North Carolina and the 60th in the USA.