A death row inmate in the US who was found guilty of killing his former lover and her husband in a fit of rage had a chilling final message before being executed.

Missouri man David Hosier, 69, was put to death this week by lethal injection following a decade in prison for his crimes, where he maintained his innocence.

Hosier was convicted of the 2009 killings of his lover Angela and her husband Rodney Gilpin, after Angela broke off their romance.

Investigators said Hosier had a romantic relationship with Angela and was angry with her for breaking it off and reconciling with her husband. Hosier maintained until the end that he was innocent and shouldn’t have been convicted on circumstantial evidence.

In September 2009, the two were fatally shot near the doorway to their apartment.

Detective Jason Miles said that Hosier had made numerous comments to other people threatening to harm Angela Gilpin in the days before the killings. After the shootings, police found an application for a protective order in Angela Gilpin’s purse, and another document in which she expressed fear that Hosier might shoot her and her husband.

Hosier was an immediate suspect, but police couldn’t find him. They used cellphone data to track him to Oklahoma. A chase ensued when an Oklahoma officer tried to stop Hosier’s car. When he got out, he told the officers: “Shoot me, and get it over with.”

Officers found 15 guns, a bulletproof vest, 400 rounds of ammunition and other weapons in Hosier’s car, the court documents state. The weapons included a submachine gun made from a kit that investigators maintain was used in the killings, though tests on it were inconclusive.

Missouri governor Mike Parson said: “He displays no remorse for his senseless violence. For these heinous acts, Hosier earned maximum punishment under the law.”

David Hosier had been on death row for 10 years.

Death row inmate’s final words

At the time, Hosier and his legal team said the trial should have focused on the lack of DNA evidence, eyewitness accounts and fingerprints at the scene.

They argued there was a lack of evidence and that the evidence provided was circumstantial.

His defence team also blamed his crime on the death of Hosier’s father when he was 16, claiming it caused trauma to him. However, Hosier wasn’t happy with this argument.

In his final words before execution, Hosier maintained his innocence and issued a message for friends, family and the victims’ families.

“I leave you all with love.

“Now I get to go to Heaven. Don’t cry for me. Just join me when your time comes.”

A day before his scheduled death, he said that he feared death and that the real killer is still “walking around free”.

“Everybody, no matter what, is afraid of death. If they say they’re not, something’s wrong with them.

“I know I’m innocent. I was not there. I did not kill these people. Period. I don’t know who did, but they’re still walking around free.

“I still don’t understand how you can find a person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and sentence a person to death when you have no witnesses to tie this person to the crime.

“You have no fingerprints, no DNA, no trace evidence, nothing tangible, no hard, physical evidence to tie me to this crime.”