Tennessee executes child killer Billy Ray Irick with drug that inflicts 'torturous pain'

Tennessee has carried out its first execution in nearly a decade using a controversial cocktail of drugs including a lethal ingredient described by the Supreme Court as "chemically burning at the stake". Billy Ray Irick, an inmate convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of seven-year-old Paula Dyer, received a three-drug injection on Thursday night after the US Supreme Court denied a final request to stay his execution. The lethal injection consisted of midazolam, used as sedative during an execution, a muscle-relaxer called vecuronium bromide, and compounded potassium chloride, the agent that stops the heart.