Principal's killer executed

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A man twice sentenced to die for robbing and killing a principal on the steps of an elementary school was executed by lethal injection Friday after the governor and the U.S. Supreme Court turned down last-ditch appeals.

Kevin Dean Young, 32, and two other men were convicted of taking $67 from Dennis Hepler, 35, as he walked out of school in August 1988.

Young's lawyers conceded he shot Helper, but said another man may have fired the fatal shot. Young said he fell backward and shot Hepler after the principal threw his wallet and swung at him.

Gov. Jim Hodges refused Friday to commute the death sentence. Later in the day, the Supreme Court, unanimously and without comment, denied a stay of execution.

Young's attorney read a final statement: ''If I said I was sorry, few if any would believe me, so I am not going dwell on that issue. I asked God, Allah, to forgive me, not man.''

Young was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to death, but the state Supreme Court returned the case to trial court for new sentencing. In 1993, another jury sentenced him to die.

In his latest appeal, Young said among other things that his lawyers should have challenged the makeup of the second jury pool, which was 91 percent white. Young is black; Hepler was white.

Co-defendant William Henry Bell, who also faces execution, has an appeal pending before the state Supreme Court. The third man, John Glenn, was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was denied parole last month.

The execution was South Carolina's first this year.