COLUMBIA, S.C. - Jason Scott Byram maintained his innocence up until his execution Friday, but the mother of the schoolteacher Byram was convicted of killing says she was thankful he expressed sympathy.

Byram, 38, died by lethal injection at 6:15 p.m. for the death of Julie Johnson, who was fatally stabbed with her own kitchen knife in May 1993 as she slept on her sofa. Johnson's husband and three children also were asleep in the home when the 36-year-old woman was killed.

Johnson's mother, Peggy Ferrell, said after witnessing the execution that she thought Byram expressed remorse as he lay on the gurney with his arms outstretched.

"I will go to my grave knowing he was looking at me. It was the first time I had eye contact with him and I felt like he was trying to say something," said Ferrell, a 70-year-old registered nurse from Spartanburg. "The second or third time that he did that, I just nodded my head and thanked him because I knew in my heart that there was an apology there."

Byram, dressed in a green jumpsuit, briefly looked through the glass window into the witness room before his attorney Jay Elliott read his final statement.

"While I maintain my innocence, I do want to express my condolences to the family of Mrs. Johnson, and I fully understand they only seek justice for their daughter," the statement said.

He also bid farewell to his family, friends and loved ones and his attorney read a Bible verse followed by the words, "I believe."

As the statement was read, Ferrell reached out and held her brother's hand.

Byram again looked into the witness room and mouthed something. His eyes began to blink slower, finally closing for good as he looked to the ceiling.

Byram maintained during his trial in 1995 that there was another man with him who fatally stabbed Johnson, but authorities never found any evidence of that. Authorities did find his fingerprint inside the home and a DNA analysis found Johnson's blood on a shirt in Byram's apartment.

He also told his wife at the time that he had stabbed someone the day of the killing, prosecutors have said.

"He admitted stabbing her. He admitted cutting her. He just said he didn't kill her, that the invisible man he said was with him gave the final blows," Ferrell said. "There was never another person. It was him and he was not innocent. The DNA proved that without a doubt."

Attorneys for Byram said he was abused by his foster mother from the time he was 6 months old and was mentally and emotionally impaired. They argued a jury never got to hear that evidence before they sentenced him to death, but the state Supreme Court denied that final appeal Thursday.

Johnson had been an elementary school teacher for about 12 years here. She taught students with emotional disturbances or behavior problems, her mother said.

Those symptoms could have put a student like Byram in Johnson's class, her mother said.

"Julie would've been the first to reach out and help him," she said.

Johnson's husband, Jeff, joined the family after the execution and expressed his thanks for the community's support. He was at his wife's side during her final moments as she lay bleeding on the family's front yard.

"As far as myself and my children, 11 years later and how we're doing? We're doing very, very well," he said. "So what's happened here today was justice was done for the citizens of South Carolina, not for me and not for my family."

About a dozen protesters gathered in front of the Corrections Department administration building. Jeff Johnson said he respected the protesters, but he said the laws in this state "are very clear."

Sal Macias, 50, was one of the protesters. The University of South Carolina Sumter professor said he and his wife met with Byram often, and he saw him the night before he was executed.

Macias said Byram expressed many times he wished the incident did not occur, but he never admitted killing Johnson.

Byram was the 31st inmate put to death in South Carolina since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.