Three US inmates executed in one day for first time since 2010
Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama carried out lethal injections within hours of each other on Thursday. It marks the first time three US executions occurred on the same day since January 2010.
Three men put to death across Tennessee, Oklahoma and Alabama in single day
Tennessee and Oklahoma executed inmates within 30 minutes of each other on Thursday, with Alabama following hours later — the first time three US executions were carried out on the same day since 2010, cnn.com reports.
The day's events reflected a broader upward trend in capital punishment across the United States. Eleven states executed a total of 47 people in 2025, the highest annual figure since 2009. Thursday's three executions bring the 2025 total to 22, with nearly a dozen more scheduled.
The last comparable day was 7 January 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas each carried out an execution. A similar alignment was attempted in 2018, but only one of three scheduled executions proceeded after a Texas man received a reprieve and Alabama prison officials encountered problems with an IV line.
Florida has separately put 31 prisoners to death since the start of 2025, including two on the same day in July.
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Oklahoma: Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70
Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. CDT at the state penitentiary in McAlester. He was the third person executed in Oklahoma this year.
Convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend, Olimpia Fisher, at their Oklahoma City home in 2003, Cuesta-Rodriguez had told a clemency board he did not want a reprieve. His attorneys argued he had experienced a difficult childhood in Cuba and suffered from brain damage and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Prosecutors detailed how Fisher, 43, had been planning to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her in one eye, then waited approximately eight minutes as she screamed before firing a fatal shot into her other eye.
Cuesta-Rodriguez turned toward two relatives who attended the execution and mouthed "I love you." He gave no last words. His breathing was laboured for several minutes before he was pronounced dead.
Fisher's daughters, Cinthya Allen and Katya Wallis, said in a statement they hoped the execution would bring awareness to preventing domestic violence, adding they honour their mother by "raising our families to reflect the love and faith in God that she taught us."
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Tennessee: Anthony Darrell Hines, 66
Anthony Darrell Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT in Tennessee. He had been convicted of the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a 54-year-old motel maid he stabbed to death in Kingston Springs.
When asked for final words, Hines initially said, "Not right now, thank you," before adding, "Tell my son hello." His son, who had only reconnected with his father four days earlier — having not seen him since he was three years old — witnessed the execution.
About four minutes after the curtain to the death chamber opened, Hines asked his spiritual adviser: "How long do I have?" Witnesses subsequently heard groans and heavy breathing as the adviser placed her hands on his shoulders and prayed over him.
Jenkins' son, Dennis Jenkins, spoke afterward. His mother had only a plastic spray bottle to defend herself during the knife attack, he said. "I hope he felt severe pain because what he did to my mother is nothing compared to what he may have just gone through," Dennis Jenkins said.
Hines' execution came three months after a separate lethal injection attempt in Tennessee was halted when medical staff were unable to establish a backup IV line for more than an hour. Hines had appealed unsuccessfully to the governor and the courts, arguing the doctor who oversaw that May procedure was unqualified and likely to mishandle his execution as well.
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Alabama: Jeremy Williams, 42
Alabama executed Jeremy Williams on Thursday evening. He was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CDT following a lethal injection — the state's first execution of the year.
Williams had pleaded guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland, a girl from Georgia. He had declined to appeal his death sentence and actively requested it be carried out, writing to the Alabama attorney general's office that he wanted Kamarie's family to have "some type of closure and satisfaction which they deserve."
Prosecutors said Williams offered Kamarie's mother $2,500 for the child to perform a sex act, then raped and strangled the girl, filming the attack. "To see on video what he did to this baby, what a grown man could do to a child, it's shocking, it's horrible, it's disgusting," said Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey. "It's just a level of evil."
Kamarie's mother is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking charges.
In his final words, Williams said: "I want to thank God for forgiving me for my sins so I can meet him in peace." He was seen rocking his head and appeared to be singing or speaking before becoming still on the gurney.
Kamarie's father, Corey Holland, described her as an exuberant child who loved princesses. "She loved playing dress-up, all her little Halloween costumes and her princess stuff I got her. She liked anything girly," he said.
Williams was also a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska, though charges in that case were not filed until 2022.
Alabama's execution programme had faced a disruption earlier in 2025 after a federal judge ruled nitrogen gas executions unconstitutional, placing a planned execution on hold in June.
Source: Google News JM — Kingston