The US state of Georgia has executed a 38-year-old inmate convicted of killing two college students in 1995. Andrew Allen Cook was pronounced dead at 11:22 pm Thursday. The two Mercer University students were shot several times as they sat in a car at Lake Juliette. Cook apologised to both his family and the victims' families. Cook didn't know either victim, and authorities say the crime was random.

The Georgia Appeals Court on Wednesday temporarily stayed Cook's execution to consider a challenge to the state's lethal injection procedure. But the Georgia Supreme Court lifted the stay on Thursday. Other appeals were exhausted.

Cook was the first inmate to be executed since the state changed its execution procedure in July from a three-drug combination to a single dose of the sedative pentobarbital.