NATION IN BRIEF : MISSOURI : Killer Who Wanted to Die is Executed

Convicted killer Gerald Smith, who had said he wanted to die, was executed by lethal injection in Potosi, Mo., becoming the second prisoner in the state to be put to death in a quarter-century and the 121st executed since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the death penalty in 1976. Smith, 31, of St. Louis, was executed for the 1980 beating death of ex-girlfriend Karen Roberts. In a letter to a newspaper, Smith said he killed Roberts because he believed she gave him a venereal disease. The Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch appeal by death-penalty opponents.