Mississippi executed its first inmate in 13 years Wednesday night. Tracy Alan Hansen was put to death at 6:32 p.m. for the 1987 killing of state trooper Bruce Ladner.
Hansen was executed by lethal injection at the state penitentiary at Parchman, where he had been awaiting execution for 15 years. It was Mississippi's first-ever lethal injection.
Hansen shot Ladner in 1987 after the trooper stopped Hansen's car on Interstate 10 for a traffic violation. Ladner was shot once in the shoulder and once in the back as he lay face down on the roadside.
Prison spokesman Ken Jones says Hansen was "teary-eyed but quiet" when he declined to take a sedative offered to him at 5 p.m.
Attorneys and ministers visited Hansen Wednesday. He also was allowed to make collect calls to friends. Among them was his father Lawrence Hansen in Orlando, Florida.
Penitentiary officials say Hansen spent some of his last hours talking, asking questions and writing letters.
