Richard Glossip was about to be executed until a drug mix-up saved him from lethal injection

HE HAD stripped to his boxers and was to be strapped down in the chamber. Then his executioners realised their mistake.

STRIPPED down to his boxer shorts and standing just metres from the death chamber, Richard Glossip had no idea how close he was to becoming another botched execution case.

The death row inmate was spared at the very last moment, after Oklahoma prison authorities realised the terrible mistake they had made. The lethal chemical cocktail they were due to inject into Glossip contained the wrong drugs.

In an error that could have been disastrous, Glossip would have been injected with potassium acetate rather than potassium chloride as part of Oklahoma’s three-step lethal injection process, which involves first anesthetising the inmate, paralysing them with a second drug which stops their ability to breathe, and finally inducing a heart attack with potassium chloride.

It isn’t known for sure what would have happened to Glossip had the error not been detected in time, because potassium acetate is not permitted for use in executions.

The results may not necessarily have been fatal because roughly 20 per cent more acetate than chloride would have been required to kill Glossip — raising the possibility of a painful, prolonged process before the executioners realised their mistake.

The Governor of Oklahoma, Mary Fallin, has called a halt to all planned executions while the state urgently investigates how the mistake occurred, Associated Press reports.

Glossip, 59, had already had his last meal and was literally moments away from receiving the lethal injection.

“I’m just standing there in just my boxers,” Glossip told reporters afterwards. “They wouldn’t tell me anything. Finally someone came up and said I got a stay (of execution)”

Glossip was just metres from the execution chamber when the mistake was realised. Picture: USA/Prisons

Justin Sneed gave evidence against Richard Glossip and escaped the death penalty.

Glossip has eaten a “last meal” once before.

He was farewelled by friends and family two weeks ago ahead of his September 16 execution, when he was granted a last-minute stay by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, citing claims of new evidence in his case. Glossip was convicted of ordering the murder of Barry Van Treese in 1997, but has always maintained he was framed.

The appeal was rejected and he was sent back to the death chamber yesterday, before the lethal injection bungle was discovered.

Glossip argues he was set up by a former co-worker, Justin Sneed, who admitted to killing the pair’s boss Van Trees. Sneed escaped the death penalty by accusing Glossip of ordering the bashing murder and giving evidence that helped convict Glossip at trial.

State officials said they became aware on Wednesday, US time, that Oklahoma’s drug supplier had shipped them the wrong drug, throwing the whole process into chaos.

Oklahoma has been considering other execution methods, including bringing back the gas chamber, after a string of botched lethal injection executions, including the disturbing death of inmate Clayton Lockett in 2014 that was likened to “a scene from a horror movie.”

Doctors tried to administer three lethal drugs to Lockett, but 20 minutes into the execution, he was still not dead, writhing and bucking on the execution table as he bled all over the floor.

The execution was called off before Lockett died at 7.06pm from a heart attack. Autopsy results showed Lockett’s vein had collapsed and the drugs had absorbed into his tissue.

Oklahoma’s Governor was reportedly “extremely frustrated” about yesterday’s delayed execution of Glossip, and is said worried about the effect it would have on Van Treese’s family.

But it was Glossip’s family who were smiling this week as, despite the odds, he lived to fight another day.

His daughter Erika, said: “Everybody was hugging and screaming and crying.

“We always tell him on the last phone call that we’ll talk to him tomorrow — and it keeps being that way.”

Kim Van Atta, who has known Glossip for more than 16 years, said his friend’s innocence was “clear from the start”.

“There’s no physical evidence, no rational motive. It just makes no sense,” Mr Van Atta told news.com.au

He speaks with Glossip regularly over the phone from his New York home and over the past 12 months has become actively involved in the desperate effort to clear Glossip’s name.

“There’s a view that people on death row must’ve done something wrong. But Richard’s an outlier. He’s just a normal, decent guy,” he said.

“He has no criminal record, no history of violence.”

Originally published as Richard Glossip was about to be executed until a drug mix-up saved him from lethal injection