A death row inmate was executed today after killing and dismembering his adoptive mother despite last-minute appeals over his mental disabilities.

Just before he was put to death, Robert Henry Moormann used his last words to apologize to his family and to the family of an eight-year-old girl he kidnapped and molested in 1972.

He said: 'I hope this brings closure and they can start healing now.

'I just hope that they will forgive me in time.'

Moormann was the first Arizona inmate to be executed with one lethal drug, as opposed to the state's long-standing, three-drug protocol.