Live by the gun, die by the gun: US killer executed by firing squad

A double murderer was executed by firing squad today after choosing bullets over lethal injection or the electric chair.

Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49, was only the third inmate to choose such a death in the mid-western state of Utah since 1977 and the first in 14 years.

His last meal was steak, lobster tail, apple pie and vanilla ice cream, with 7Up to drink.

His spent his last day sleeping, reading the novel Divine Justice — about the most wanted man in America — watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy and meeting his lawyers and a Mormon church bishop. One official at Utah State Prison, about 20 miles from Salt Lake City, described Gardner's mood as "relaxed".

For the execution, he was strapped into a black metal chair with sandbags heaped around it to stop ricochets. A white target was pinned to his chest over his heart and five marksmen, all anonymous police officers who had volunteered, opened fire with .30-calibre Winchester rifles from behind a wall 25 feet away.

One rifle carried a blank round so no one would know who fired the fatal shot. Prisoner 14873 was pronounced dead at 12:20am local time.

Gardner was sentenced to death in 1985 after being found guilty of shooting lawyer Michael Burdell in court during a failed escape attempt. The lawyer died as Gardner was being tried over the murder of a barman, Melvyn Otterstrom, the previous year.

After a judge signed his death warrant in April this year, Gardner declared: "I would like the firing squad, please."

The killer had set up an interview on CNN show Larry King Live, which was cancelled by prison bosses minutes before it was due to take place.

About two dozen members of Gardner's family held a vigil outside the prison after he specified that none of them should witness his death.

His brother, Randy, said: "He didn't want nobody to see him get shot. I would have liked to be there for him. I love him to death. He's my little brother."

Utah adopted lethal injection as its standard execution method in 2004 but Gardner was allowed the firing squad because he was sentenced before the law changed.