St. Louis Public Radio

In Ohio, the execution took 26 minutes, as the inmate gasped and snorted. In Oklahoma, it took 43 minutes until a conscious inmate died of what the state said was a heart attack. In Arizona, it took nearly two hours, with the inmate "gulping like a fish on land."

The three worst botched executions this year had at least one thing in common: The states all used a drug called Midazolam to sedate the inmate, with varying levels of success.

Botched executions in other states led to questions in Missouri, a state as secretive as the others. Top Missouri officials were asked about the state's methods. They defended their own protocol each time, pointing out that Missouri doesn’t use the same drugs as those other states.

But an investigation by St. Louis Public Radio shows that wasn't entirely true.

According to documents we obtained, Missouri has used Midazolam in every execution since November of last year. In all nine executions since then, Missouri's execution team has injected the condemned with significant amounts of the sedative.

This is occurring in spite of the fact that Missouri's top corrections officials testified Midazolam would never be used in a Missouri execution.

'We Will Not Use Those Drugs'

"Why will there be no use of [Midazolam] in an execution?" a lawyer asked Missouri's Director of the Department of Corrections, George Lombardi during a deposition in January.

"Because we have no intention to do that. We have Pentobarbital that we use," Lombardi responded.

"Well, I -- the subsection B says that if the Department Director -- which is you, correct?"

"Right."

"Determines that a sufficient quantity of Pentobarbital is not available, then Hydromorphone or Midazolam will be used. Are you saying that --"

"And I'm testifying right now to tell you that will not be the case. We will not use those drugs," Lombardi said.

He was under oath. [MORE]