This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows death row inmate, Troy Clark. Clark, who taunted jurors to sentence him to death, is facing execution for torturing and drowning an East Texas woman in his bathtub and then stuffing her body into a barrel. Clark was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening, Sept. 26, 2018, for the 1998 slaying of a former roommate, 20-year-old Christina Muse of Tyler. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP) (Texas Department of Criminal Justice)
A Texas inmate maintained his innocence and insisted he didn’t murder his ex-roommate just moments before he was executed on Wednesday.
Troy Clark, 51, said in his final statement, in front of several friends watching through a window, that “it’s all good,” despite denying he tortured and drowned his former roommate, Christina Muse, in May 1998.
"I'm not the one who killed Christina," Clark said. "But, hey, whatever makes you happy."
As the drugs were coursing through his body, Clark said that it “burned going in” and laughed.
"I feel it," he said.
Clark was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. Wednesday — 21 minutes after a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital was injected in his body.
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Clark, a drug dealer, was sentenced to death in 2000 after he was convicted of killing Muse out of fear she would snitch on him. Clark subdued the 20-year-old with a stun gun, bound her with duct tape and left her in a closet for several hours while he played video games and sold drugs to a customer, prosecutors said.
Clark later moved Muse to a bathroom where he hit her with a board and threatened his then-girlfriend, Tory Bush, into helping him drown Muse in the tub. Muse's body was then stuffed into a barrel with cement mix and lime before being dumped in a ravine.
During the trial, Clark taunted the jury by saying, “I really ain't got no story to tell. It's just I want the death penalty.”
Clark has repeatedly denied for years any involvement in Muse’s death. He claimed he was delivering drugs when Muse was killed, the Houston Chronicle reported. His lawyers also pointed that there was no physical evidence that connected Clark to the slaying.
But Bush testified in court admitting to the murder and blaming Clark. Bush received 20 years in prison.
"There was pretty strong evidence that he was guilty. Tory Bush was pretty damning," said Bobby Mims, one of Clark's trial attorneys.
Clark was also accused of murdering two other people, including one killing that was committed after Muse was killed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
