Oklahoma executed 46-year-old Donald Grant on Thursday, killing a man who struggled with severe mental illness and brain damage. Grant is the third person killed by the state in recent months amid a lawsuit over whether Oklahomas lethal injection protocol violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Grant was killed with a lethal injection of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride the same combination of drugs used in the high-profile botched execution of Clayton Lockett in 2014. After a years-long pause on executions, Oklahoma officials used the same drug protocol last October to kill John Marion Grant (no relation), who vomited and gasped for air as he died.

Donald Grant feared his execution would be botched, he told KFORs Ali Meyer over the phone before he was killed. Media witnesses did not describe any signs of visible suffering, although the states lethal injection contains a paralytic that can mask signs of pain. Associated Press reporter Sean Murphy, who witnessed the execution, reported that Grants last words included, Yo, God, I got this.

There is no principled basis for allowing Oklahoma to move forward with any executions right now, Jennifer Moreno, one of the federal defenders representing the plaintiffs in the lethal injection litigation said in a statement. The problematic execution of John Grant, as well as the mistakes the state made in the executions of [Lockett] and Charles Warner in 2014 and 2015, show that the States midazolam-based protocol creates too much risk of pain and suffering. A trial is scheduled at the end of February where these issues will be fully litigated on the merits. A short pause would be more prudent.

Grant was executed as punishment for killing Brenda McElyea and Suzette Smith, employees at a La Quinta Inn, during a 2001 robbery to get money to bail his girlfriend out of jail. McElyeas sister, Shirl Pilcher, said in a statement that although Grants execution does not bring Brenda back, it allows us all to finally move forward knowing justice was served.

An Abusive Childhood

Like many of the people who are sentenced to die in the U.S., Grant grew up in poverty and endured extreme abuse. His mother drank heavily while pregnant, and complications during birth severely impaired his brain development and left him with lifelong disabilities, Carolyn Crawford, a doctor who specializes in perinatal medicine, concluded after reviewing Grants brain scans and his mothers pregnancy and delivery records.

Grants father also struggled with alcoholism and had a violent temper when he was drunk, Grants brother Shawn Robinson said in a 2010 statement. One time he picked Donald up by the foot and dropped him headfirst on a marble floor when Donald was very young, Robinson said. Several times a week, Grants father would slam his head into a metal pole in the basement of their apartment, his brother testified at trial. Grants mother beat him, too, using curtain rods, extension cords and high-heeled shoes.

When Grant was about 6, his parents split up. He, his mother and his four siblings were homeless. They eventually moved into Grants grandmothers apartment in a Brooklyn housing project. As many as 26 people lived in the three-bedroom apartment at a time. Several of the children living in the apartment were sexually abused by Grants uncles, according to Grants sister Juzzell Robinson.

Most of the adults in the apartment, including Grants mother, struggled with drug addiction. Grant stole food to eat and got a job packing groceries. Sometimes, while Grant and his siblings slept at night, their mother and uncles would steal money out of their pockets to buy drugs, Shawn Robinson said.

Grants mother eventually moved him and his siblings out of his grandmothers home, and they shuffled between New York Citys shelters and welfare hotels at least 15 to 20 different ones, Juzzell Robinson estimated. When Grant was 12, his grandmother reported his mother to the Bureau of Child Welfare. Grant and one of his brothers were placed in a group home, separated from the rest of their family.

Grant was placed in special education classes until he stopped going to school in the ninth grade. When he was about 14, his mother came up with a plan to kidnap her kids from New Yorks protective services and move them to North Carolina, Grants lawyers wrote in his clemency application. His mother was still addicted to crack, and they still lacked stable housing and money for food and clothes. In the clemency packet, Grants lawyers quote several family members who recall Grant exhibiting bizarre and abrupt behavioral changes as a child.

Soon after the move, Grant was found delinquent in juvenile court and found to have committed felony breaking and entering, felony larceny and second-degree burglary. He was placed in a juvenile training school and was assessed as having borderline intellectual functioning. Throughout his teens, he continued getting in trouble for theft.

Grants mothers husband, Ronald Williams, believed Grant had problems with his mind, he said in a 2007 statement. Even when Donald was older and he was doing good, he would still snap. He would make these faces, and you could tell he wasnt right, Williams said. I thought the boy was suicidal. He isolated himself. I used to hear him talking like he was talking to someone else, then I would go in the room and see no one was there but him.

After the 2001 double homicide, Grants trial proceedings were stalled for four years because he was incompetent to stand trial, according to his clemency application. Several doctors found that Grant showed symptoms of psychosis. At least two doctors, including one hired by the state, diagnosed him with schizophrenia.

When Grant finally testified in court in 2005, his statements were rambling and nonsensical. Questioned about a potential conflict of interest involving his lawyer, Grant responded, My theory plays my whole background. Thats for one. My way of life is Im going to leave this planet earth. Thats my theory. My theory I stand on it and it dont have to have nothing to do with this. My theory is my theory, you see what Im saying.