‘Wow, that is awesome': Murderer Richard Cobb goes out with sarcastic last words as lethal injection takes effect

A Texas inmate was executed Thursday evening for fatally shooting a convenience store robbery-tued-abduction nearly 11 years ago.

Richard Cobb, 29, didn't deny using a 20-gauge shotgun to kill Kenneth Vandever in an East Texas field where two women also were shot and one was raped. He was convicted of capital murder.

'Life is death, death is life. I hope that someday this absurdity that humanity has come to will come to an end,' Cobb said when asked if he had any last words.

'Life is too short. I hope anyone that has negative energy towards me will resolve that.

'Life is too short to harbor feelings of hatred and anger. That's it, warden.'

But that wasn't it.

Just before the lethal drug took effect and at the conclusion of his statement, Cobb twisted his head back, raised it off a pillow placed on the guey and then toward the warden standing behind him.

'Wow!' the inmate exclaimed in a loud voice. 'That is great. That is awesome! Thank you, warden! Thank you (expletive) warden!'

His head fell back on the pillow, and his neck twisted at an odd angle, with his mouth and eyes open.

Scene: Two female convenience store workers and one man who helped at the store were abducted and the man was killed while the two women were raped and shot but managed to escape

He remained that way for some 15 minutes before a physician entered the death chamber to examine him and pronounce him dead at 6.27p.m.. Sixteen minutes had passed since the drug had been injected.

The father, stepmother and stepbrother of the man shot and killed by Cobb were among the witnesses.The victim, Mr Vandever, had a diminished mental capacity at the time of his death because of a prior car accident.

Also in the viewing area was one of the women who was shot and attacked but survived to testify against Cobb.

In a brief order last week, the state court refused Cobb's appeal as being filed improperly and dismissed it without considering the merits of the claim.

With Cobb's execution imminent, the appeal was 'nothing more than a meritless attempt to postpone his execution,' Tomee Heining, an assistant state attoey general told the high court late Wednesday.

On September 2, 2002, Vandever and the two women were abducted from a store in Rusk, about 120 miles southeast of Dallas, and taken to a field about 10 miles away.

All three were shot and left for dead. Vandever, 37, died, but the women managed to get help and later testified against Cobb and his partner, Beunka Adams.

Cobb was 18 at the time of the attack, on probation for auto theft and a high school dropout.

Cobb and Adams were arrested in Jacksonville, about 25 miles away, the day after the crime. It was the last in a series of robberies tied to them.

Cobb testified at his trial he began using drugs at age 12 and tued to robbery to pay off a drug debt.

Adams was executed a year ago this week for his participation in the slaying.

Vandever had frequented the store in Rusk and would do things like take out the trash. An auto accident had left him with the mental capacity of a child.

Shooter and victim: Cobb, who was 18 at the time of the murder, said he was pressured into killing Kenneth Vandever (right), who had a diminished mental capacity due to an earlier car crash

Cobb's trial attoeys unsuccessfully tried to show Adams forced Cobb to shoot Vandever by threatening Cobb.

Partner: Beunka Adams was tried and executed for shooting and raping the two women that he and Cobb abducted from the convenience store

The survivors of the attack said they never heard such threats, but heard Vandever plead that he needed his medication and scream when he was shot.

'Basically, it was an act of compulsion,' Cobb said of the abductions and shootings.

He described himself to The Associated Press shortly after arriving on death row in 2004 as 'young, dumb and made a mistake.'

'I'm guilty of the crime,' he said.

He told the Jacksonville Daily Progress last month from prison he didn't want to die 'but I'm ready for it.'

At least 11 other Texas inmates have executions scheduled for the coming months.

Three are scheduled for May.