Marco Allen Chapman (September 4, 1971 – November 21, 2008) was a convicted murderer and the last person executed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

[1][2][3][4][5] Chapman was executed for a series of murders he committed on August 23, 2002, in Warsaw, Kentucky, on Weldon Way,[6] killing two children, Chelbi Sharon, 7, and Cody Sharon, 6, by stabbing[7] after he had raped and stabbed their mother, Carolyn Marksberry, the city clerk of Warsaw at the time, over 15 times.

[11] On August 23, 2002, some time between 4:10 a.m. and 5:49 a.m.,[13] Chapman knocked on Carolyn Marksberry's door on Weldon Way, waking her up, and asking to use her telephone.

[6] Chapman had previously played cards with Carolyn's family, and helped with some home improvement work at her house.

[15] Chapman admitted going to Carolyn's home armed with a knife, but he said he planned to have consensual sex with her, and had only premeditated the robbery.

[7] Chapman stabbed Carolyn a total of 15 times with a knife that broke off in her chest,[7] and then he "attacked her children.

"[6] Marksberry's youngest child, her son, Cody, 6, was awakened by the noise, and came into the bedroom during the attack, and told his mother he'd had a bad dream.

[7] When Chapman left, Carolyn Marksberry, in the nude, and bleeding badly, gnawed through her restraints, and jerked loose from the vacuum cord binding her to the bed.

[11] The initial call was heard by Gallatin County's 911 dispatch at 6 a.m. Warsaw Police Chief Donnie Gould was the first officer on the scene.

[11] Linda Tally Smith, the Commonwealth's lead prosecutor in Gallatin and Boone County, said she thinks that Chapman was a crack cocaine abuser coming off a crack binge, and had targeted Marksberry for robbery; in part because he probably knew that her husband was out of town for job training.

[7][13] At his Boone County home, Chapman dropped off the Geo he was driving, and swapped it out with his friend's gray 1992 Dodge Dakota.

After cleaning himself up, Chapman left a note telling his friend that he was taking the Dakota out to "get a load of firewood".

[13] To the authorities in West Virginia, Chapman said he was "gonna go get some party materials and park out in the woods somewhere and die".

[13] Chapman pleaded not guilty to the five charges, and was being held at the Carroll County Regional Detention Center on a $50 million bond.

Jim Gibson, a death-penalty specialist in the public defender's office in Frankfort, assisted John Delaney.

[13] When a police officer was testifying about how Carolyn Marksberry had to crawl over the lifeless body of her 6 year old son Cody, Chapman bowed his head down, and wept.

Authorities tackled Chapman within 10 yards of his starting spot, his hands still cuffed, and chained at the waist.

In October 2004, Chapman wrote to Boone County Judge Anthony Frohlich he wanted to fire his attorneys, end any legal proceedings to prevent his execution, and be sentenced to death.

[7] Chapman wrote that his guilt was "too much for" him "to bear," and that he wanted "the Marksberrys to feel that justice has been served with my death.

[7] One possible argument the defense had prepared was to point out Chapman's "wretched childhood", which could have saved him from the death penalty.

"[15] The U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-ditch request to halt the execution from an attorney for people challenging the state's regulations on lethal injection.

[7] Reverend Pat Delahanty, the President of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, concurred with this opinion.

"[6] Under Kentucky law, incompetent to stand trial means that the defendant "lacks the capacity to appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against one or to participate rationally in one's own defense.

'"[18] Since Chapman was found competent based on Kentucky law, "there is nothing inherently unconstitutional about a person deciding to take responsibility for his or her criminal misconduct.

I don't know if I deserve heaven after what I did, but I pray with all my heart that I find some sort of peace and happiness after my last breath.

"[7] After Simpson read the statement, Chapman looked toward the two-way mirror on wall to the room where the family was and said how "terribly sorry" he was.

[1][20] At 8:15 p.m. Prison Warden Tom Simpson drew back the curtain so media witnesses could see Chapman.

[7] At 8:20 p.m. EST, Tom Simpson gave the order to start the deadly three-drug cocktail to flow into Chapman's veins.

[2] Paul Miles of 84WHAS radio, said he saw a tear come down from Greg Howard's, the deputy warden, cheek and eye.

[1] The Associated Press reported that right before Chapman's execution, a group of about 10 people huddled in a semi-heated tent and read aloud the names of Kentucky's Death Row inmates and their victims.