Nebraska completes its first ever lethal injection, which is first US execution to include use of the opioid fentanyl

The lengthy local article, headlined "'A monumental day'; Nebraska executes Carey Dean Moore in state's first lethal injection," reports on a milestone capital punishment even in the heartland today. Here are a few details:

Nebraska carried out its first execution in 21 years on Tuesday, using four drugs to end the life of double murderer Carey Dean Moore.

Moore, 60, became the first condemned inmate in the state put to death by lethal injection. He had served 38 years on death row for the 1979 killings of Omaha cabdrivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland. Helgeland and Van Ness were shot five days apart as Moore targeted cabdrivers because he knew they carried cash. Both men were 47 years old, fathers and military veterans.

Corrections Director Scott Frakes said the first of four execution drugs was administered at 10:24 a.m. The Lancaster County coroner declared Moore dead at 10:47 a.m. Frakes said the execution was carried it out with "professionalism, respect for the process and dignity for all involved."

The scene outside the Nebraska State Penitentiary, where the execution occurred, was subdued on Tuesday morning amid on-and-off rain showers. Only about a dozen death penalty opponents prayed outside the prison; only three capital punishment proponents attended. Many more state troopers and media members stood nearby.

Gov. Pete Ricketts, who helped lead an effort to overturn a 2015 repeal of the death penalty by the Nebraska Legislature, spent the morning in a meeting with state agency officials. “Today, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services carried out the sentence the court ordered in accordance with the will of the people of Nebraska," Ricketts said in a prepared statement. "The death penalty remains a critical tool to protect law enforcement, corrections officers and public safety.”

Outside the governor's mansion in Lincoln just after the execution, a handful of protesters stood in the rain, one carrying a sign reading "Ricketts has blood on his hands.”

Among the death penalty supporters who came to the prison were Vivian Tuttle, whose daughter was slain inside a Norfolk bank in 2002. "I'm here to support the victims," Tuttle said. "That's the ones I have to stand for." Standing with her was Pierce County Sheriff Rick Eberhardt, who, along with Tuttle, collected hundreds of signatures to allow voters to restore the death penalty in 2016.

​Tuttle's daughter, Evonne Tuttle, was one of five people killed in a bank robbery in Norfolk on Sept. 26, 2002. Evonne Tuttle, a single mother, went to the bank in Norfolk to cash a $64 check. Three gunmen from the robbery, Jose Sandoval, Jorge Galindo and Erick Vela, all are on death row. "I think it's important that we have voices that still say it's important that we stand for the death penalty. And for the families of victims," Tuttle said.

Moore — who had served the longest time on Nebraska's death row — was led to the execution chamber at 10 a.m. After he was strapped to the execution table, he mouthed the words "I love you" multiple times toward his official witnesses, which included a brother and a niece.

His final words were delivered in a handwritten statement: He hoped that lawyers could get his younger brother, Donald, released from parole, and urged death penalty opponents to pursue claims of innocence by four others on Nebraska's death row....

The four official media witnesses to the execution said that Moore's face gradually turned slightly red, then purple, as the four drugs were administered. The execution was the first using the four drugs obtained by Nebraska, over legal objections by death penalty opponents and some drug manufacturers. The curtain to the execution chamber was lowered at 10:39 a.m. after the fourth drug was administered. The curtains reopened eight minutes later after he was pronounced dead....

Duggan called the execution "a monumental day" after the many debates in the state over capital punishment. The death penalty was restored by voters in 2016 by a 61-39 percent margin after a petition drive, in large part funded by Ricketts, placed the issue on the ballot. "There's no question it's a significant day in the state's history," the reporter said.

In a statement, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said, "Our sympathy is extended to the families of Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland for the loss of their loved ones nearly thirty-nine years ago. Today's somber event serves to provide a measure of closure for what has been a lengthy enactment of justice."

Nebraska has now carried out 38 state-sanctioned executions. Moore was put to death using a previously untried four-drug combination of diazepam, fentanyl, cisatracurium and potassium chloride.

He is the first inmate executed using the drug fentanyl, a powerful narcotic painkiller that has contributed to the nation's epidemic of drug overdoses. He was put to death despite two federal lawsuits filed last week by drug companies seeking to keep their products from being used. The state's last execution before Tuesday took place in 1997, when the electric chair was the method. Lethal injection was adopted in 2009 after the state Supreme Court outlawed electrocution as cruel and unusual punishment.