Blaine Milam is pictured in prison.
Margaret “Maggie” Berry embraces her sons Andrew (left) and Will (right) in this photo taken after Berry earned her GED. Berry was killed in a robbery of convenience store where she worked in 1997. Geoffrey West, convicted of her murder, is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on Sept. 25.
Geoffrey Todd West is pictured in prison.
(L-R) Geoffrey Todd West and Blaine Milam

Texas and Alabama have executed death row inmates within minutes of each other, one for killing a 13-month-old baby during an "exorcism" and the other for shooting a mother of two in the head during a gas station robbery.

Texas executed Blaine Milam, 35, by lethal injection for the 2008 death of his girlfriend's baby daughter in what Milam and her mother described as an "exorcism." He was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25.

As part of his last words, Milam thanked the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's chaplaincy for a faith-based program on death row that allowed him "to be accepted into it to find Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior," according to the department.

"And if any of you would like to see me again, I implore all of you no matter who you are to accept Jesus Christ as you Lord and Savior and we will meet again," he said. "I love you all, bring me home Jesus."

Just 18 minutes before Milam died, Alabama carried out the execution of Geoffrey West, 50, by the relatively new method of nitrogen gas for the 1997 murder of Margaret Parrish Berry during the robbery of the gas station where she worked. He was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. CT.

"I am at peace because I know where I am going and look forward to seeing Mrs. Berry when I get there," West said in reference to his victim as part of his last words, provided to USA TODAY by his attorneys. "I urge everyone, especially young people, to find God. Spend a few moments to consider the two possibilities: this was all a fluke or there is a Creator and a reason for everything. Your choice will determine where you spend eternity."

It was the fifth time this year that two executions have been carried out on the same day in the U.S.

Milam's and West's deaths bring the number of executions in the nation this year to 33, the most in any given year since 2014 − an increase that experts told USA TODAY is largely being driven by the political climate in the U.S. under President Donald Trump.

On Thursday just hours before the back-to-back executions, Trump signed a presidential memo directing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to "fully enforce" the death penalty in Washington, D.C. to "punish the most heinous crimes in our Nation's capital." D.C., a liberal city, abolished the death penalty in 1981.

Here's what else to know about Thursday's executions and nine more scheduled before the end of the year.

Blaine Milam's execution for baby's death

On Dec. 2, 2008, an 18-year-old Blaine Milam called 911 to report he had just found his daughter dead in his trailer home just outside Tatum, a small rural town in East Texas near the Louisiana state line. (Milam was not her father but was her mother's fiancé.)

When investigators arrived, they found the brutalized body of 13-month old Amora Bain Carson, whose injuries included 24 bite marks, 18 broken ribs, extensive skull fracturing, cuts and bruises from head to toe, a liver tear and extensive injuries to the genitals, according to court records.

"It's the worse thing I've seen in 30 years of law enforcement," Lt. Reynold Humber of the Polk County Sheriff's Office told the Longview News-Journal in 2008.

Milam and Amora's mother, then-18-year-old Jesseca Carson, initially told investigators they had left the girl alone for about an hour and returned to find her dead. As investigators pressed them in separate interviews, they eventually said Amora had become possessed by demons and needed an exorcism. Their stories later varied as to who killed her.

Carson was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; Milam was sentenced to death. At the time, he was the youngest person on death row in the United States.

In the 2013 documentary in which he was interviewed by filmmaker Herzog, Milam said Amora "was a great little girl" whose first word was "Daddy," referring to Milam.

"I didn’t kill my little girl," he said in the interview. "I wish I could go back and stop her, but I can't. I don’t understand how it got this far, but it did."

In recent weeks Milam's attorneys have been arguing that he had an unfair trial because of unreliable bite mark evidence and that he is intellectually disabled. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments.

Geoffrey West's execution for murder of mom of 2

Geoffrey West was convicted of shooting 33-year-old Margaret Parrish Berry execution-style in the back of the head as she lay on the floor during a robbery that netted just $250, court documents say. She had been working at the gas station for only a few days when West robbed it along with his 17-year-old girlfriend, according to an archived story in the Birmingham News.

West has expressed remourse for the killing, and one of Berry's own sons had been fighting for a reprieve for the murder.

Will Berry, who was 11 when a 21-year-old West shot his mother, said he has forgiven West and didn't want him to be executed, according to an opinion piece published in the Montgomery Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network.

"That won’t bring my mother back," he wrote. "I believe that in seeking to execute Mr. West, the state of Alabama is playing God. I don’t want anyone to exact revenge in my name, nor in my mother’s."

Berry expressed frustration that the Alabama attorney general's office didn't notify him that it had asked for an execution date to be set and that no one from Gov. Kay Ivey's office let him know when it was scheduled. He added that he wanted the execution commuted or at least delayed so he could meet with West and speak to him "heart to heart" − a request denied by corrections officials.

Ivey wrote Berry a letter, telling him that she would not commute the death sentence.

"Alabama law imposes death as punishment for the most egregious forms of murder," Ivey wrote to Berry. "This is to deter future murders, to prevent the murderer from ever killing again, and to express society's outrage at such a terrible crime. As governor, it is my solemn duty to carry out these laws."

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement after West's execution that "Margaret did not have to senselessly die."

"As a country, we must stand firmly in our beliefs between right and wrong, justice and forgiveness," he said. "Alabama is steadfast in our commitment to holding the guilty accountable because that is what honors the dignity of every victim. Justice is how we restore peace to the communities they leave behind.”

In a statement following the execution, West's attorneys said that when he killed Margaret Berry, he was a 22-year-old man "weighed down by desperation and battling substance abuse."

"His decision was thoughtless and stupid, born from weakness rather than malice," they said. "He has expressed deep remorse for the harm he caused, and has carried that remorse for decades ... He sought forgiveness, both privately and publicly. His remorse was sincere."

They condemned the decision that stopped Will Berry from meeting with West.

"That meeting could have allowed Mr. West to apologize in person, and might have given the victim’s son a chance to hear that apology, perhaps to offer forgiveness," they said. "Denying this meeting was a lost opportunity − for closure, for healing, for humanity. It is a loss to all of us."

When is the next scheduled execution?

Nine more executions are scheduled in eight states by the end of the year after West's and Milam's, putting the United States on pace to put at least 42 inmates to death, a number that hasn't been seen since 2012. (Twenty-five people were executed in the United States last year and the all-time high is 98 executions in 1999.)

The next execution is set for Tuesday, Sept. 30, when Florida is scheduled to lethally inject Victor Tony Jones for the 1990 stabbing murders of a noted inventor, Jacob "Jack" Nestor, and his wife, Matilda "Dolly" Nestor.

It will be Florida's 13th execution of the year, a record driven by Gov. Ron DeSantis signing more death warrants than ever before. Before this year, the most executions Florida had carried out in a single year was eight.

October will be a particularly busy month for executions, with seven scheduled. Five of them will be carried out in one four-day period alone in Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas and Arizona.

Among the most notable is Texas' scheduled execution of Robert Roberson, who won a rare stay of execution last year after a bipartisan fight to spare his life over significant questions about his guilt.

The memo Trump signed Thursday pointed to the president's "determination to protect our Nation’s capital for all Americans who visit and reside there and ensure violent criminals face the toughest consequences under law."

"Enforcing Federal capital punishment − despite efforts by some politicians, lawyers, and non-governmental organizations to oppose it − has been a priority for President Trump, who signed Executive Order 14164 to restore proper enforcement of the federal death penalty on Day One," the memo says.

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers executions for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.

This story was updated to add a gallery.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Double execution: Texas, Alabama execute inmates within minutes of each other

Reporting by Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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