On Thursday, three inmates were executed, marking the first triple execution in the U.S. in 16 years.
The executions took place in Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Alabama, all by lethal injection and occurring within a few hours of each other, as reported.
Typically, only one or sometimes two executions are scheduled on a given day in the U.S., so having three is considered “very unusual,” according to Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Observers of the death penalty noted that the timing of such executions was just coincidental.
The first two executions happened just 30 minutes apart early Thursday morning.
Carlos Cuesta Rodriguez, 77, was executed in Oklahoma for the 2003 murder of his common-law wife, Olympia Fisher. He was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. CT. Cuesta-Rodriguez had previously told the Oklahoma Parole and Pardon Board last month that he deserved mercy, although his legal team believed he might avoid the death penalty.
“Trust me, I deserve to suffer,” he stated. He also addressed Fisher’s daughters, saying, “It’s time to pay for what you did.”
Not long after, Tennessee executed Anthony Hines, 66, for the 1985 murder of Katherine Jean Jenkins, a mother of four. Hines was pronounced dead at 10:34 a.m. CT. He had stabbed Jenkins while she was cleaning a motel room and then stole $100, escaping in her car. He admitted to the theft but claimed he didn’t kill her.
Later in the evening, Alabama executed Jeremy Williams, 42, for the brutal 2021 murder and rape of a 5-year-old girl. He was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CT. Reports indicate that Williams abducted Kamarie Holland from her home after arranging with her mother, who has since been sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking, to harm her.
Williams drugged the child and subsequently raped and strangled her, continuing the abuse even after her death. Notably, he requested that his lawyer not represent him during the upcoming trial and instructed his team not to appeal the death sentence.
What’s striking about Williams’ case is that, unlike many death row inmates who often wait decades for their execution, he was put to death merely five years after his crime.
The last time a triple execution occurred in the U.S. was back on January 7, 2010, when prisons in Ohio, Texas, and Louisiana executed a prisoner each.
In a related note, last month two death row inmates were executed on the same day in Florida, the first time in nearly ten years that this happened. The individuals, former police officers James Duckett and Dominic Occhorne, were executed on July 2. Duckett had been convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl while on duty, while Occhorne was sentenced for killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents.
