Wendell Arden Grissom, 56, was executed Thursday morning by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

He was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. Grissom confessed to the 2005 murder of Amber Dawn Matthews of Dover during a home invasion in Blaine County.

Several of Matthews’ family members were at Thursday’s execution.

Also there was Dreu Kopf and her two daughters, Gracie and Rylee.

It was Kopf’s home that Grissom and Jesse Johns forced their way into, first shooting Kopf twice, according to court documents.

Matthews grabbed one of the young children and ran to a bedroom where the other one was sleeping.

Grissom eventually shot Matthews twice and she later died in an Oklahoma City hospital.

Both children survived and the two criminals were later arrested after Kopf was able to escape in Grissom’s vehicle and call authorities.

Grissom and Johns were both convicited of the murder.

Johns is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.

Grissom was denied clemency at a hearing last month, but did not seek any last-minute appeals of his execution.

He was the first person to be executed in Oklahoma this year.

“I apologize to all of you that I’ve hurt,” he said to those in attendance before being executed, according to a report from the Associated Press.

“I regret so much that I’ve put that hatred in your heart for me.

“I pray that you all can forgive me. Not for my sake. For your sake.”