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Jamaal Howard used his final words to apologise to his victim’s family before telling the prison warden he was ‘ready’.

Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:03pm local time after receiving a fatal dose of pentobarbital at Texas’s Huntsville Unit.

He was sentenced to the death penalty for the 2000 murder of Vickie Swartout during an attempted robbery.

Howard, who was 20 at the time, fatally shot store clerk Swartout in the chest before taking $114 and a carton of cigarettes, court documents show.

Once in the chamber, Howard issued a final statement apologising to the family of Swartout.

“I wish that you accept my apology and I wish for your forgiveness,” he said, shortly before the injection got underway.

“I’m sorry for what happened. I wish you can learn to forgive me one of these days.”

He then said to the warden: “Warden, that’s it. I’m ready Warden.”

Jamaal Howard was executed on 7 October (State of Texas 356th Judicial Court)

Prior to being executed, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson said Howard had been ‘chatty’ with staff during the 45-minute journey from death row to the Huntsville Unit where executions are carried out.

Spokesperson Amanda Hernandez said: “He made small talk with the officers through the whole trip.”

Once inside, he was taken to a holding cell inside the death chamber.

“He was asking questions and was very engaged in the process,” Hernandez said.

Earlier today, his legal team tried unsuccessfully to have the execution blocked, claiming Howard was intellectually disabled and had a history of mental illness.

At his trial, psychiatrists found that Howard had an IQ in the 65-70 range, and described him as functioning at the level of an 11 or 12-year-old.

In an article published in The Texas Observer ahead of the execution, Howard’s spiritual advisor Reverend Jeff Hood claimed that the inmate ‘didn’t understand how executions were carried out’ and that he was not aware of the Pike case.

Hood wrote that when he informed him about Pike and explained that the drugs hadn’t worked during her execution, Howard replied: “I guess if the drugs don’t work, they’ll just shoot me in the head.”

The Reverend went on to say that he then explained to Howard that executions didn’t work like that but claimed he ‘literally had no understanding of the protocol by which he was going to be executed or what would happen if something went wrong’.

His lawyers also raised concerns about the use of pentobarbital – the same drug that had been used in Pike’s execution attempt on 30 September.

One filing delivered to the court, read: “Ms. Pike survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital, the same drug used in executions in Texas, and she reportedly remains hospitalised in critical condition.

Howard’s legal team raised concerns following the botched execution attempt of Christa Pike (Inside Edition)

“When an execution goes wrong, one of the first questions anyone asks is whether the drug was what the State said it was.

“Tennessee’s own officials cannot yet answer that, and the answer lies in records: when the drug was bought, from whom, how it was stored, and what testing was done and when. Texas should not wait until after a failed execution to ask the same questions.

“We do not know why Ms. Pike’s execution failed, and we, specifically, do not know whether the failure was due to the pentobarbital’s being ineffective.”

In the wake of Pike’s failed attempt, the state of Tennessee announced it was halting all planned executions until an investigation had been carried out.

In a statement released shortly after the botched attempt, the Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed ‘every step’ of the standard protocol.

“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” the statement said.

“The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility.”

The aunt of the death row killer who survived her execution Christa Pike has said she believes the failed lethal injections were all part of ‘God’s will’.

In the first interview given by a member of Pike’s family, her aunt Carrie Ross, who helped raise her and ‘loves her like a daughter,’ said she should not have to face execution a second time because ‘the Lord wants her to live’, reports the Daily Mail.

She said, “When God puts his hand on someone, God is in control.

“Not the Department of Correction, not us, but God.”

She revealed that she had not yet been allowed to speak with her niece and neither had her other relatives since she woke up and began to speak after being unconscious since the execution attempt on September 30.

Pike was rushed to hospital after being administered two doses of the lethal poison pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Christa Pike sat in court (YouTube/Inside Edition)

She cannot eat or swallow, and both her arms are swollen, according to statements by her lawyers. She is reported to have blood clots in her arm and is suffering from pneumonia.

Her legal team revealed as recently as Monday they believed Pike was ‘brain dead’ and her life support would be switched off the following day.

However, on Tuesday, to their surprise, instead of being allowed to die, they learned Pike was ‘conscious, speaking’.

Her first words upon waking up were reportedly, “Where am I and who are you?”

She was due to become the first woman to be executed by Tennessee in over 200 years. Instead, she became the first person to survive execution after actually being given a lethal injection.

“Christa has a long road to recovery,” her attorney Randy Spivey said.

Pike was due to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years (Tennessee Department of Correction)

“She has a blood clot in one of her arms, she has pneumonia,” he added. “She is not able to swallow yet, so she has not eaten.”

Spivey said that Pike also suffered ‘extraordinary’ swelling to her hands, adding that they “looked like if you were to blow up a surgical glove.

“I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning.”

An anaesthesiologist who has advised Pike’s lawyers, Dr Joel Zivot, told the BBC that Pike “has some memories of being in the hospital but no memory, I believe, of the execution attempt.”

“It’s been up, down, up, down. I have cried more tears in the last week than I’ve cried in my whole life,” Ross said.

“This whole week has been a blur.”

The Christa Pike case in numbers (LADbible/Tennessee Department of Correction/WBIR-TV)

Pike was sentenced to death by a court for the brutal 1995 torture and killing of her classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

Pike was 18 at the time and the court which convicted her heard she was in a jealous rage when she committed the murder.

Her aunt argues that Pike’s death sentence should be commuted on the grounds ‘she has suffered enough’ and a second attempt would be ‘torture’.

“That would be horrible. Torture. Don’t do that to a human,” Ross said. “She has completed her execution. She went willingly.”

A gold statue of a naked Donald Trump atop the shoulders of another man has been unveiled in Strasbourg.

The statue, which stands at more than eight-feet tall, is titled The Orange Plague or The King of Injustice and is the work of Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt.

Finished in 23-carat gold leaf, the statue has been put on display at the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg.

The naked figure is holding an extra-long golf club in one hand and a small set of scales in the other, while a ball, designed to look like the world, lies on the ground in front of him.

Meanwhile, the poor bloke tasked with carrying Trump on his shoulders looks tired and worn out.

A card next to the piece, which is signed The King of Injustice, reads: “I am sitting on the back of a man. He is sinking under my burden. I would do anything to help him. Except stepping down from his back.”

‘The Orange Plague’ was created by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot (Halil Sagirkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Galschiøt said he created the satirical piece, which was inspired by the old tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, as a criticism of Trump’s climate policies.

“The sculpture is a satirical out-cry against Trump and the US assault on the green transition and the rule-based world order,” he said.

He said the artwork was not aimed at the parliament itself.

“It is about the attempts by the great powers to dominate, control and reshape the world according to their own interests. Trump is an extreme and very visible symbol of this development,” he said.

“I have made him naked and covered him in gold because sometimes satire can say things that political language cannot.”

The website for the piece states: “The sculpture is inspired by H. C. Andersen’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, in which a vain ruler parades naked, believing him-self dressed in the finest garments. The illusion — sustained by fear and flattery — endures until a child cries out, ‘He’s not wearing any clothes’ – and the emperor becomes a figure of ridicule.”

The piece was created as a criticism of Donald Trump’s climate policies (MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images)

Visitors to the statue can also get their hands on their own mini version of the piece, known as ‘protest tokens’, which will be given away for free across the three-day exhibition.

Or if you have access to a 3D printer, you can make your own with the free files available on Galschiøt’s website.

As yet, it’s not known if Trump is aware of The Orange Plague and he hasn’t commented on its existence – but we can probably assume he won’t love it.

However, Per Clausen, the left-wing Danish MEP who invited the artist to display the sculpture, told Deutsche Welle he isn’t worried about any potential backlash from the POTUS.

He said: “If someone is so thin-skinned that they cannot tolerate this sculpture being exhibited in the European Parliament, then they have no place on the world stage.”

Galschiøt said he is ‘very excited’ to see how the exhibition is received by the ‘decision makers of Europe’ during its time on display.

Newly released bodycam footage captured the aftermath of a six-year-old boy shooting his school teacher in class.

Richneck Elementary School teacher Abby Zwerner was shot in the chest by a first-grade pupil in Newport News, Virginia, in January 2023.

Bodycam footage from Officer Brian Torrez shows the six-year-old, who was identified only as J.T., verbally lashing out after the incident and threatening to fight cops.

The youngster can be heard asking the officers: “Both y’all want a f***ing piece of me, b***h?”

In the clip, educator Amy Kovac can be seen telling the boy to ‘stop’, after which he issued two expletives at her.

The 9mm Tarus handgun that J.T. used in the shocking incident can be seen on the floor just feet away from the boy.

Talking through a radio, another officer says: “We have the shooter.”

Kovac can then be heard telling the police that she told the assistant principal about a ‘threat’ earlier on in the day before confirming to one of the officers that the boy is just six-years-old.

“He has been on a modified schedule. His mother is to pick him up at 2:30. This is his first week without his mother coming to school with him,” Kovac says.

The young boy, who is being held on Kovac’s lap, continues to speak out saying that he ‘doesn’t care’ if he goes to jail and admitting he ‘stole’ the gun from his mother.

“I don’t care if you call back up, I don’t care if I go to jail, b***h,” he says.

The incident left Zwerner with broken bones and a punctured lung.

Zwerner later filed a $40 million lawsuit against the school’s assistant principal Ebony Parker, claiming she failed to address prior warnings from her and other teachers about the boy’s violent behaviour.

She was ordered to pay Zwerner $10 million in a gross negligence lawsuit.

Parker previously had criminal charges lodged against her over the shooting but they were dismissed in court.

Judge Rebecca Robinson dismissed the case, saying that Parker did not break the law.

She said: “If [Parker’s actions] are meant to amount to a crime, the legislature will need to codify it.

“Therefore, I do grant the defense motion to strike in full on all counts, all eight counts of felony child abuse and endangerment.”

The youngster lashed out verbally at officers (Newport News Police Department)

Prior to the case being dismissed, Zwerner had testified about the shooting in court, saying that she had warned Parker about the boy’s ‘violent mood’ on the day of the incident.

Recalling the shooting, which left her with permanent injuries, Zwerner said: “I saw the student looking at me. I looked over. A gun was pointed right at me. He was holding a gun, the student. It was pointed right at me. And then I was shot.”

Zwerner was shot in the hand and the chest.

In a statment issued via her family, Zwerner has since said she has moved on from the shooting.

They said: “We are happy that this tragic event is behind Abby.

“As devastating as this shooting was, may it bring change to the education system in our country so that violent children are not placed in a general education classroom, and I hope that administrators are held accountable if this were to happen again for violent behaviour.”

The boy’s mother pleaded guilty to felony child neglect and was sentenced to two years in prison.