Strickland ordered the weeklong reprieve Tuesday afternoon after executioners had struggled for about two hours to locate suitable veins for inserting IVs into 53-year-old Romell Broom.
The team began working on Broom shortly after 2 p.m. in a holding cell 17 steps from the execution chamber.
No Ohio governor has issued a similar last-minute reprieve since the state resumed executions in 1999.
Broom raped and fatally stabbed a 14-year-old girl in 1984 after abducting her at knifepoint as she walked home from a Friday night football game with two friends.
