TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA (BNO NEWS) -- An elderly New York man was executed at a prison in Florida on Wednesday after being convicted twice of raping, beating and killing a woman in January 1980, prosecutors said. He had been on death row for more than 31 years.

Robert Brian Waterhouse, 65, from Greenport, New York, received a lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Railford and was pronounced dead at 8:22 p.m. local time. The execution took place two hours later than scheduled after a last-minute appeal which was later rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to prosecutors, on January 2, 1980, Waterhouse met 29-year-old Deborah Kammerer at the ABC Lounge on Fourth Street in St. Petersburg. Bartender Kyoe Madokawa Ginn told the jury that she saw them both leave her area of the cocktail lounge just after midnight, although she could not see if they left the lounge together.

Both Waterhouse and Kammerer were regular customers at the ABC Lounge and had met before the night of the murder, according to Ginn and other witnesses. One day, just before the bar closed during the early morning hours, Waterhouse had asked Kammerer to go out with him for breakfast, the bartender testified.

Hours after they left the lounge, in the early morning hours of January 3, 1980, a man who was walking his dog discovered the nude and battered body of Kammerer. The victim was lying face down in the mud of Lassing Park in southeast St. Petersburg, a 10-minute drive from the ABC Lounge.

Assistant Medical Examiner Joan Wood said the victim was beaten so severely that the autopsy took about seven hours, seven times the normal amount of time. There were 30 lacerations and 36 bruises on Kammerer's body, she had been choked, raped, sexually abused with a bottle and a bloody tampon was stuffed down her throat. But she survived the horrific assault and died only after being dragged through the park and left to drown in the Tampa Bay.

An anonymous phone call led to the arrest of Waterhouse nearly a week later, and prosecutors said a large amount of blood was found inside his vehicle. He had asked the day off from his construction job the day after the murder, and witnesses reported seeing Waterhouse clean his car that day. His employer also reported seeing scratches on his cheek.

Also part of the trial was a woman who was Waterhouse's girlfriend at the time of the brutal murder. She testified that he had once slapped her during sex and then apologized and cried. His employer also told the court that Waterhouse had said he liked to slap women during sex.

Further, investigators found blood, hair and clothes fibers in Waterhouse's vehicle which matched those of Kammerer, leading to the conviction. "The crime of Murder in the First Degree of Deborah Kammerer committed by the Defendant, Robert Waterhouse, was especially wicked, evil, atrocious and cruel," the court said in its judgment during Waterhouse's re-trial, which sentenced him to death by the electric chair.

But despite the evidence and testimonies in court, Waterhouse claimed to be innocent until his execution on Wednesday.

In 1966, at the age of 19, Waterhouse was arrested for the rape and murder of 77-year-old Ella Carter in Greenport Village, New York. He pled guilty to a reduced charge of second degree murder and was released after eight years in prison. Waterhouse was on life parole when he moved to Florida.

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