In 1991, Herbert Smulls called jeweler Stephen Honickman and set up an appointment to meet at his store in suburban St. Louis. He said he wanted to buy a diamond for his fiancee.

It was a set up. Smulls wanted to rob the store and took along a 15-year-old friend to help commit what became a far worse crime: Honickman was shot to death. Honickman’s wife, Florence, was also shot, but survived by faking death in a pool of her own blood until the assailants left.

Smulls, 56, did not have any final words. The process was brief, Smulls mouthed a few words to his two witnesses, who were not identified, then breathed heavily twice and shut his eyes for good. He was pronounced dead at 10:20 p.m.

Florence Honickman spoke to the media after the execution, flanked by her adult son and daughter. She questioned why it took 22 years of appeals before Smulls was put to death.

“Make no mistake, the long, winding and painful road leading up to this day has been a travesty of justice,” she said.

His attorneys spent the days leading up to the execution filing appeals that questioned the secretive nature of how Missouri obtains the lethal drug, saying that if the drug was inadequate, the inmate could suffer during the execution process. The U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary stay late Tuesday before clearing numerous appeals Wednesday _ including the final one that was filed less than 30 minutes before Smulls was pronounced dead, though the denial came about 30 minutes after his death.

When asked about the time between the appeal and the execution, Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Mike O’Connell said, “I’m not familiar with that.”

Like Joseph Paul Franklin in November and Allen Nicklasson in December, Smulls showed no outward signs of distress in an execution process that took about nine minutes.

Missouri had used a three-drug protocol for executions since 1989, but makers stopped selling those drugs for executions. Missouri ultimately switched late last year to a form of pentobarbital made by a compounding pharmacy. The state claims that since the compounding pharmacy is part of the execution team, it is not required to disclose its name.

Smulls had a troubled life from the start. Born in St. Louis to an unwed 15-year-old, he was passed along to two other caregivers while still a toddler. As a young man he turned to crime and spent time in prison for robbery.

In the summer of 1991, he decided to rob again.

Honickman’s F&M Crown Jewels in the tony St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield was open by appointment only. Honickman agreed to meet with Smulls on the pretense that Smulls was buying a gift for his fiancee.

The encounter quickly turned violent. Honickman, shot and dying on the floor, pleaded with Smulls to stop.

“Enough already, take what you want,” Honickman said according to his wife’s testimony. The robbers took rings and watches, including the ones Florence Honickman was wearing. They apparently thought she was dead, as she’d been shot in the side and the arm, lying motionless in her own blood.

“I felt pain and terror while I lay on the floor playing dead while the murderers ransacked our office,” Florence Honickman said Wednesday night.

When police stopped Smulls 15 minutes later, they found stolen jewelry and weapons in his car, St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch said. Florence Honickman identified the assailants.

Smulls’ legal case was protracted over several appeals and over several years, finally ending in 2009 with the death sentence. His accomplice, Norman Brown, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

“It was a horrific crime,” McCulloch said. “With all the other arguments that the opponents of the death penalty are making, it’s simply to try to divert the attention from what this guy did, and why he deserves to be executed.”

Compounding pharmacies custom-mix drugs for individual clients and are not subject to oversight by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, though they are regulated by states.

Smulls’ attorney, Cheryl Pilate, contended the state’s secrecy regarding where the pentobarbital is made makes it impossible to know whether the drug could cause pain and suffering during the execution process.

Pilate also said she and her defense team used information obtained through open records requests and publicly available documents to determine that the compounding pharmacy is The Apothecary Shoppe, based in Tulsa, Okla. In a statement, The Apothecary Shoppe would neither confirm nor deny that it makes the Missouri drug.

Pilate said the possibility that something could go wrong persists, citing recent trouble with execution drugs in Ohio and Oklahoma. She also said that previous testimony from a prison official indicates Missouri stores the drug at room temperatures, which experts believe could taint the drug, Pilate said, and potentially cause it to lose effectiveness.

Some Missouri lawmakers have expressed reservations about the state’s execution procedure. On Tuesday, Missouri Senate Democratic Leader Jolie Justus introduced legislation that would create an 11-member commission responsible for setting the state’s execution procedure. She said ongoing lawsuits and secrecy about the state’s current lethal injection method should drive a change in protocol.

9:30 p.m.  (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared an appeals court stay that had been delayed the Wednesday execution of a Missouri death-row inmate.

The court’s ruling, however, left Missouri less than three hours to meet an 11:59 p.m. deadline to execute Herbert Smulls.

Smulls, 56, was sentenced to death for killing a suburban St. Louis jeweler and badly injuring his wife during a 1991 robbery.

Smulls’ attorneys filed several appeals, mostly challenging the state’s refusal to disclose the name of the company that supplies its execution drug.

 7:55 p.m.  (AP) – The execution of a death-row inmate in Missouri is still on hold pending a court fight.

Missouri’s attorney general asked the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday to clear an appeals court stay that is delaying the Wednesday execution of Herbert Smulls.

The high court had issued a temporary stay shortly before Smulls was scheduled for execution at 12:01 a.m. The Supreme Court lifted that stay around 5 p.m., but another appeal is still pending.

Under stay law, the state has until the end of the day to carry out the execution.

Smulls’ attorneys filed several appeals, mostly challenging the state’s refusal to disclose the name of the company that supplies its execution drug.

Smulls was sentenced to death for killing jewelry store owner Stephen Honickman during a 1991 robbery.

5:30 p.m.  (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied last-minute requests to halt the execution of a Missouri man convicted of killing a local jeweler two decades ago.

The high court issued a temporary stay less than three hours before Herbert Smulls was scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

But the court lifted the stay without explanation late Wednesday afternoon, meaning the execution can move forward.

Smulls’ attorneys were challenging among other things the state’s refusal to disclose where it obtained its lethal injection drug. The state says the name of the compounding pharmacy isn’t public record, because it’s considered part of the execution team.

The 56-year-old Smulls was sentenced to death for killing Stephen Honickman and badly injuring his wife during a 1991 robbery of their suburban St. Louis store.