MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana death row inmate who refused to request clemency was executed early Friday for the 1994 shooting deaths of his estranged wife and two of her relatives, saying he was “not proud of the man I was, but I am no longer that man.”

Matthew Eric Wrinkles died from a lethal injection at 12:39 a.m. at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, said Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison. Authorities said Wrinkles was on methamphetamine when he cut the phone lines, broke into his brother-in-law’s Evansville home and killed his wife, her brother and her sister-in-law in July 1994.

“Tonight my children lose their natural father, my friends lose me, my brothers grieve. More victims are created,” Wrinkles wrote in his final statement. “As Einstein said, only a life lived for others is worth living.”

Moments before his death, he said: “Let’s get it done. Let’s lock and load. It’s plagiarized, but what the hell.”

Wrinkles didn’t pursue any last-minute appeals or efforts to save his life Thursday. The 49-year-old inmate had told his attorneys not to make any such efforts, and they agreed to abide by his wishes.

Indiana Public Defenders Council Executive Director Larry Landis, a spokesman for the attorneys who represented Wrinkles, said the inmate was “tired of fighting” and had resigned himself to death.

Wrinkles was convicted of murdering his wife, Debra Jean Wrinkles, 31; her brother, Mark “Tony” Fulkerson, 28; and Fulkerson’s wife, Natalie “Chris” Fulkerson, 26.

Wrinkles adult daughter, Lindsay Christmas, issued a handwritten statement that said she recently made peace with her father.

“Regardless of what my dad has done, he’s still my dad,” she wrote. “I will go on with my life having peace within me.”

Debra Wrinkles’ mother, Mae McIntire, said in an interview after the execution that he only recently began showing remorse.

“I thought it was a little bit late, him saying the things he did. He could have said that a long time ago, but he waited until the end,” she said. “I’m going to try to start my life over after 15 years and try to have a better life.”

The killings came just days after Wrinkles’ mother tried to have him committed due to his erratic behavior but was told he didn’t meet the criteria. He had been briefly hospitalized at a different hospital about two weeks before the killings but was released after a psychiatrist determined he was not “gravely disabled,” according to records from a 1999 court hearing.

Authorities say Wrinkles was high on methamphetamine when he cut the phone lines to the Fulkerson home about 2 a.m. on July 21, 1994. He was wearing camouflage clothes and face paint and armed with a gun and a knife when he kicked open the door of the home, where his estranged wife and children were staying.

Wrinkles shot Mark Fulkerson in front of Fulkerson’s 3-year-old son, then shot Debra Wrinkles as their daughter pleaded for her mother’s life. Finally, he shot Natalie Fulkerson in the face.

Wrinkles has said the killings wouldn’t have happened except for his methamphetamine addiction and his fear he would never see his children again. But McIntire has said Wrinkles abused her daughter long before he killed her.

Defense attorney Joanna Green said that wasn’t the man he knew.

“During the time he’s been on death row, he’s obviously not taking drugs,” Green said. “While there’s not a lot a person can do on death row to make up for their crimes ... he has done what he can.”

Outside the prison, a half-dozen members of the Duneland Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty bundled up against the frigid cold Thursday night to protest. They beat drums and carried signs calling for a state moratorium on capital punishment including one that read, “The state is not the Angel of Death.”

The drum beats could be heard inside the prison.

They were meant to support Wrinkles, said leader Marti Pizzini, 69, of Chesterton, who has been protesting executions at the prison for 20 years.

Wrinkles’ execution was Indiana’s first in more than two years. Before Wrinkles, the last person put to death in Indiana was Michael Lambert, who was executed in June 2007 for fatally shooting a Muncie police officer 16 years earlier.

Posted 12/11/2009