Melson was convicted of the murders of three fast-food restaurant employees during a robbery in 1994.
Officials say 46-year-old Robert Melson was pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m. CDT Thursday following a lethal injection at a southwest Alabama prison.
State prosecutors say Melson robbed a Popeye's restaurant in Gadsden, 60 miles (96 kilometers) northeast of Birmingham.
Melson, they claimed, opened fire on four employees in the restaurant's freezer.
Bryant Archer, who survived the attack, crawled to seek help and identified Melson's accomplice as a former employee of the restaurant.
Melson's attorneys made a flurry of last-minute court filings seeking to halt the execution, arguing that Alabama planned to use a sedative called midazolam that would not reliably render him unconscious before he is given other drugs that stop his lungs and heart.
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Melson's attorneys unsuccessfully asked appellate courts to halt the execution in order to review the constitutionality of Alabama's lethal injection protocol.
The state has maintained there was no evidence that inmates experienced pain using midazolam. If the execution goes ahead, it will be the 13th this year in the United States and the second in Alabama in 2017. Melson and other inmates are appealing a judge's dismissal of lawsuits that argues Alabama plans to use the sedative midazolam that has been linked to what they say were problematic executions.
A temporary stay was granted by the 11 Circuit Court last Friday but was recently struck down by the Supreme Court.
At a press conference following the execution, Commissioner Jeff Dunn read a prepared statement from the Collins family. Wednesday morning, John Palombi and Leslie Smith with the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama filed a motion to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and one to the Alabama Supreme Court for stays.
Peraita was also convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. While in prison, he killed another inmate and now is on death row, according to court records.
The Alabama attorney general's office argued midazolam's use has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and it has allowed multiple executions to proceed using the drug, including the execution of an Alabama inmate last month.
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