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Kaine denies clemency; VA inmate executed

Dexter Lee Vinson was put to death Thursday night for the sexual assault and murder of his former girlfriend after Governor Tim Kaine rejected a plea for clemency. Vinson received a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt and was pronounced dead at 9:15 p. m.

Governor Kaine, a Roman Catholic, is morally opposed to the death penalty, but promised during his campaign last year to uphold death sentences. Vinson's case was the first test of that pledge.

When asked if he had any final words, Vinson shook his head sharply back and forth several times. The U. S. Supreme Court refused earlier Thursday to stop the execution. Vinson was convicted in 1998 of the capital murder of 25-year-old Angela Felton. In May 1997, the Portsmouth mother of three was abducted and taken to an abandoned house, where she was sexually mutilated and stabbed. She bled to death.