He was convicted in 1994 of the rape and murder of 22-year-old Joy Stewart, who was seven months pregnant. Her relatives were at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville to witness his death, according to tweets from television reporter Sheila Gray.
McGuire's "children and daughter-in-law were crying and visibly upset," Gray tweeted.
A Dayton Daily News reporter who also watched the execution said that before the drugs took effect, McGuire thanked Stewart's family for a letter he apparently got. "I'm sorry," McGuire reportedly said.
The convicted murderer was pronounced dead at 10:53 a.m. ET,
The execution generated controversy because, like many states, Ohio has been forced to find new drug protocols after European-based manufacturers banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions -- among them, Danish-based Lundbeck, which manufactures pentobarbital.
The state used a combination of the drugs midazolam, a sedative; and the painkiller hydromorphone, the state corrections department told CNN.
In an opinion piece written for CNN earlier this week, a law professor noted that McGuire's attorneys argued he would "suffocate to death in agony and terror."
"The state disagrees. But the truth is that no one knows exactly how McGuire will die, how long it will take or what he will experience in the process," wrote Elisabeth A. Semel, clinic professor of law and director of the Death Penalty Clinic at U.C. Berkeley School of Law.
According to a pool report from journalists who witnessed the execution, the whole process took more than 15 minutes, during which McGuire made "several loud snorting or snoring sounds."
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