USA - Ohio. Daniel Lee Bedford, 63, white, was executed. The prison staff appeared to have trouble getting the IV into his arm.

Daniel Lee Bedford, 63, white, was executed. The prison staff appeared to have trouble getting the IV into his left arm. After several attempted sticks with the needle, one of his lawyers, Carol Wright stood up and made at least one phone call from the witness area to a colleague in another part of the prison. "They're clearly having problems," she said, adding at one point "it's a bloody mess." In the 11 minutes it took to insert the IV, Wright was calling out to Bedford through the glass separating the witness area and death chamber. Previous Ohio executions have been marred (see, for instance, September 15, 2009, May 2, 2006, February 3, 2004) by multiple attempts to get the needle into a suitable vein. Bedford received the death penalty after confessing the killing of his former girlfriend, Gwen Toepfert, 25, and her new boyfriend, John Smith, 27, on April 24, 1984. Bedford becomes the 4th condemned inmate in Ohio to be put to death this year and the 45th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. Bedford becomes the 16th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1250th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.