Utah Executes Man in Killings of 5 Boys

DRAPER, Utah — Arthur Gary Bishop, a former bookkeeper who said he deserved to die for letting himself “be misled by Satan,” was executed by lethal injection Friday for the sex-murders of five boys from 1979 to 1983.

Bishop, 37, rejected a last meal in a fast he began in his last day of life. The execution was carried out after he halted all of his legal appeals.

The serial child-sex killer was moved into Utah’s death chamber about 30 minutes before midnight and spent his final hours sleeping, reading from Mormon Church scriptures and meeting with his attorney, a Mormon bishop, psychologist and his biographer.

Bishop was given five death sentences in 1984 for the kidnaping and murder of five boys ranging in age from 4 to 13. He had confessed to the separate brutal killings and led police to the hidden bodies of his victims. Prosecutors said four of the victims had been sexually molested.