A serial killer who preyed on gay men along the US east coast has been executed in Florida.<\/p>\n
Gary Ray Bowles was executed by lethal injection after the Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch appeal.<\/p>\n
Bowles admitted to killing six men in 1994 from Florida to Maryland but was only convicted of three deaths.<\/p>\n
Sometimes dubbed the “I-95 killer”, most of his victims were found near the interstate corridor that spans the entire eastern seaboard of the US.<\/p>\n
Investigators say the 57-year-old West Virginia native left an abusive household as a child and worked as a prostitute to gay men for a number of years before beginning his killing spree.<\/p>\n
After two jail sentences for grand theft, robbery, assault and rape, he moved to Daytona Beach in 1993.<\/p>\n
During this time he continued to work as a prostitute, and was living with a girlfriend who left him after discovering his sex work.<\/p>\n
He later told authorities that he blamed gay men for their break-up, and was angered to learn that his girlfriend had had an abortion, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.<\/p>\n
After a manhunt, Bowles was arrested in Jacksonville while living under a false identify.<\/p>\n
He was convicted of killing Walter Hinton, 47, and given a death penalty.<\/p>\n
He also pleaded guilty and was given life sentences for the murders of John Hardy Roberts, 59, and Albert Alcie Morris, 37.<\/p>\n
His lawyers had contended in their appeal that he was too intellectually disabled to be executed.<\/p>\n
Bowles became the 99th inmate to be put to death in Florida since 1976 when the death penalty was restored by the Supreme Court, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.<\/p>\n
He is the 13th person to be executed in the US so far this year, the Death Penalty Information Center says.<\/p>\n
His execution came a day after\u00a0Texas executed a man convicted of the murder of a 19-year-old student<\/a>, which he maintained he did not commit.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"