/ Modified dec 22, 2014 2 p.m.

Arizona Seeks Past Drug Combo for Executions

Change comes after drugs used in July execution took two hours to kill man who murdered two Tucsonans.

State Prison Sign spot
AZPM Staff

Arizona officials will no longer administer the two-drug combination used in the nearly two-hour execution of Joseph Rudolph Wood this year for the 1989 killings of a Tucson man and his daughter.

The state Department of Corrections will instead try to obtain drugs that were successfully used for many years but have become obsolete and difficult to obtain. If the state cannot get those drugs, it will use a different three-drug combination that will include midazolam, the sedative used in Wood's death.

The change follows the results of an independent investigation into Wood's July 23 execution. Wood was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz, at the family's Tucson business.

It took nearly two hours for Wood to die, and his lawyers called the execution "botched." But the report found it was not.

The state has put other executions on hold.

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