In a final statement before he was executed, condemned Arkansas inmate Kenneth Williams apologized to the families he “senselessly wronged and deprived of their loved ones.”
Williams then declared “I am not the same person I was” and proceeded to speak in tongue.”
Williams on Thursday night became the fourth inmate that Arkansas has executed in eight days.
Department of Correction spokesman Solomon Graves said Williams first read from a written statement in which he sought forgiveness and thanked the family of a man he had killed in a vehicle accident for paying for his daughter and granddaughter to visit him this week.
“Regarding my last words… Not that I believe that a person can speak last words, there’s eternity. I imagined I will once again apologize to the victim’s family members. In addition to that, I doubt it if you will be able to properly record my final words on paper. You [won’t] even understand them because they will be spoken in my spiritual language, in ‘tongues,'” Williams told the executioner.