Oklahoma executes inmate convicted of killing ex-girlfriend and her baby

Oklahoma executed a death row inmate by lethal injection on Thursday morning. The inmate had been convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her baby almost two decades ago. Raymond Johnson, 52, was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. Thursday following a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, prison officials said. He was sentenced to death for killing 24-year-old Brooke Whitaker and her 7-month-old daughter, Kya, in June 2007. Johnson was the 11th person executed in the United States so far this year, and the second executed in Oklahoma. Another Oklahoma inmate, Kendrick Simpson, received a lethal injection in February for the drive-by shooting deaths of two men in 2006. Florida has carried out five executions since January, more executions than any other state. Prosecutors said Johnson and Whitaker had been arguing at her home in Tulsa before he repeatedly hit her over the head with a metal claw hammer. Whitaker's skull was fractured and she had more than 20 lacerations on her face and scalp. But she was still conscious and begged Johnson to spare her and Kya, who was sleeping in a bedroom, prosecutors said in documents prepared for Johnson's clemency hearing in April. "She begged him to call 911. She begged him to let her mom come get baby Kya. She begged him to think of her children," the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office said. Whitaker had three other children. …