This Thursday, Tennessee completed the execution Harold Wayne Nicholswho faced the maximum sentence for rape and murder Karen Pulley in 1988. The 20-year-old student was attending Chattanooga State University and had just begun building her professional future when she was attacked. After confessing to the crime and admitting to other sexual assaults in the area, Nichols was sentenced to death in 1990.
The trial lasted more than three decades, between revisions to the execution method, protocol changes and rejected appeals. The execution took place in Nashville, reportedly ending a chapter that Pulley’s family described as a devastating time Guardian.
Before receiving the lethal injection, Nichols said a few short words: “To the people I hurt, I’m sorry.”. His spiritual advisor accompanied him and recited the Lord’s Prayer as both became emotional.
Eyewitnesses described a tense process. The condemned man remained lying on a stretcher with a tube attached to the inside. A blood stain was observed in the area. While administering the medication, Nichols exhaled sharply, his upper body heaved, and then he inhaled briefly, which was evident when compared to the sounds of snoring. His face turned red, he groaned, and finally his skin turned purple before he was pronounced dead.
A few hours earlier, the United States Supreme Court had rejected a request to stop the execution.
Lisette Monroe, the sister of the murdered young woman, said they were trapped in “hell” after waiting 37 years Guardian. He remembered Pulley as a “sweet and innocent” young woman. That’s what her husband Jeff Monroe claimed The family was “destroyed by evil” that night in 1988. and stressed that Nichols’ attacks were “premeditated, violent and horrific.”
“Taking a life is serious and not fun,” Monroe said during a press conference after the execution. “However, the numerous victims were carefully pursued and targeted. The numerous crimes were premeditated, violent and heinous.”
Pulley had completed Bible studies and aspired to become a paralegalsaid Monroe. He described the young woman as happy, helpful and enthusiastic about the plans she was beginning to make.
Nichols has already gone through two execution dates without success. In 2020, he received a reprieve due to the pandemic and then chose death in the electric chair, an option that was said to have been available to those convicted before 1999 The Guardian.
In the same year, questions emerged about the three-drug lethal injection method. An audit ordered by Gov. Bill Lee found that none of the substances used had been used since 2018 was tested correctlywhich resulted in all executions being suspended.
The state then adopted a new single-drug protocol. Pentobarbitalwhich is still in litigation. Several attorneys contend that Tennessee is not providing enough information about the trial. Nichols did not choose a method this time, so lethal injection was used by default.
Nichols’ death adds 46 executions in the United States in 2025, a figure that deepens the national debate about the methods available and the growing obstacles to obtaining the necessary drugs.
With information from the AP agency.
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