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Story highlights
John Ruthell Henry, 63, was executed Wednesday in Florida
He fatally stabbed his wife and her 5-year-old son in 1985
Two other men -- in Georgia and Missouri -- also were executed by lethal injection
A double murderer was executed in Florida Wednesday night, becoming the third man put to death in an American prison during a 24-hour period. All three died by lethal injection.
John Ruthell Henry, 63, was declared dead at 7:43 p.m. ET at the Florida State Prison in Starke, according to CNN affiliate WFLA, which had a media witness inside the prison. Henry fatally stabbed his wife and her 5-year-old son from a previous marriage in December 1985.
In Georgia, Marcus A. Wellons, 59, was declared dead at 11:56 p.m. ET Tuesday. Wellons was convicted in 1993 of raping and killing India Roberts, 15, in Cobb County, just outside Atlanta.
In Missouri, John Winfield was declared dead at 12:01 a.m. CT Wednesday, the state Department of Public Safety said.
In 1996 he killed two women who were friends of his ex-girlfriend, whom he also shot, leaving her blind, reported CNN affiliate KOLR.
Those three executions were the first in the United States since the botched execution of an Oklahoma man in April. The Oklahoma execution raised questions about how prisons use drugs in lethal injections.