A 53-year-old blind death row inmate was put to death over the 1991 slaying of his estranged girlfriend on Thursday evening at a Nashville, Tennessee maximum security prison, it was reported.
Hall is the second blind inmate to be put to death in the United States since it was reinstated in 1976.
The inmate chose the electric chair over lethal injection, which is an option afforded to death row inmates who were convicted before 1999.
AP reported that he was strapped into the electric chair before curtains were raised so that witnesses—including family—could get a look.
Later, he received two jolts of electricity while in the chair and was pronounced dead.
Court documents said Hall killed 22-year-old Traci Crozier in April 1991 by setting her car on fire with a container of gasoline. She was inside the car and was attempting to leave him.
The gasoline container exploded, ultimately killing Crozier, AP reported.
“Hopefully today ending this monster’s life will bring some peace within everyone who has had to suffer throughout these 28 years without my beautiful sister,” sister Staci Wooten told AP. She watched the execution with Crozier’s father, Gene Crozier.
Kelly Gleason, Hall’s attorney, had asked federal courts to place a stay on Hall’s execution. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.
“We are devastated by the loss of Traci and now Lee,” Hall’s family said in a statement. “Lee loved Traci more than anything and we welcomed her into our family and love her too. We also love Lee and wish that we could have changed the events of that tragic day.”
Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee declined to grant a stay and issued a statement about the matter.
Tennessee is one of six states where death row inmates can choose the electric chair. Three out of five recent inmates have died via the chair since last year, AP noted.
