The state of Missouri went ahead with the execution of an inmate who beat a 63-year-old woman to death with a hammer in 1998, a record 10th execution in 2014 that matches only Texas.

Paul Goodwin, 48, was convicted of sexually assaulting his former neighbor, Joan Crotts, in St. Louis County. He shoved her down a flight of stairs and then used a hammer to beat her in the head because she thought Crotts played a role in getting her evicted from a boarding house, according to an Associated Press report. Crotts stayed alive long enough to give police information that would lead them to Goodwin.

The execution began at 1:17 a.m. as officials waited to hear word from a Supreme Court appeal, and he was pronounced dead eight minutes later.

Goodwin’s low IQ — 73 — was a center of appeals efforts to save him, claiming that his execution would violate a Supreme Court rule prohibiting using the death penalty on the mentally disabled.

Goodwin’s sister, Mary Mifflin, said in a statement that her brother had the mental capacity of a child, and was not being punished justly for the crime, as it was out of passion and not premeditation.

However, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declined his request for clemency, and the Supreme Court decided against the legal appeals, both on the question of mental competency and the use of an unqualified execution drug.

There were six people at the execution from Goodwin’s side, including his mother and two sisters, and 10 people from the Crotts family, who all wore the favorite color of the victim, purple.

Currently, the death penalty is legal in 32 states, limited by the 8th Amendment to the Constitution when it comes to mentally competent adults. Last year, 39 people were executed in the United States, with more than 3,000 on death row.