Three men in Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma are Thursday in a rare convergence of executions on the same day in the U.S.
A man in Tennessee faces execution for killing a motel maid. An Oklahoma man is scheduled to die for killing his girlfriend. And an Alabama man will be put to death after dropping all his appeals in the killing of a 5-year-old girl he paid her mother to abuse.
Eleven states carried out executions in 2025 in the U.S. If the Tennessee and Alabama deaths take place, six states will have had executions in 2026.
The last time three executions were held on the same day was Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death. Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was granted a reprieve and prison officials in Alabama with the IV line.
two men in July and has put 31 prisoners to death since the start of 2025.
Tennessee’s last scheduled execution was halted after IV problems
Tennessee plans to execute Anthony Darrell Hines for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins.
Hines stabbed Jenkins to death while the 54-year-old was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs. He was sentenced to death in 1986, won an appeal for a new sentencing hearing and was again sentenced to death in 1989.
Hines’ execution date comes just three months after the of another man was called off because of a problem inserting an IV.
Hines, 66, appealed unsuccessfully to the governor and the courts, saying that the was unqualified and likely to botch his execution as well. He said his thinness and muscular atrophy after two strokes mean he could face problems with an IV as well.
During the attempted execution of Tony Carruthers, the IV team established a primary line right away but then worked for more than an hour trying to insert a backup line. Carruthers’ lawyer and said the team tried to insert an IV in Carruthers鈥� arm, hand and foot before attempting to insert a central line.
In the end, Gov. Bill Lee called off the execution and gave Carruthers a one-year reprieve.
The state has declined to say whether the same doctor will preside over Hines鈥� execution. Regardless, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled Hines had not proven the doctor was unqualified and suggested the problems were an isolated mishap.
Alabama inmate pleaded guilty to rape and killing of girl
Alabama is scheduled to execute Jeremy Williams by lethal injection for the 2021 rape and murder of a 5-year-old Georgia girl.
Williams, who pleaded guilty to , declined to appeal and asked for his death sentence to be carried out.
Williams, 42, raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform a sex act, prosecutors said.
Williams filmed his attack on the girl and kept her body to continue to abuse, prosecutors said.
鈥淭o see on video what he did to this baby, what a grown man could do to a child, it鈥檚 shocking, it鈥檚 horrible, it鈥檚 disgusting,鈥� Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just a level of evil.鈥�
Williams also was a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska but charges were not filed until 2022.
Corey Holland, Kamarie鈥檚 father, said his daughter was an exuberant 5-year-old who loved princesses and made people laugh.
鈥淪he loved playing dress-up, all her little Halloween costumes and her princess stuff I got her. She liked anything girly,鈥� Corey Holland said.
It will be Alabama鈥檚 first execution of the year if it goes forward. A nitrogen gas execution was halted in June after a federal judge unconstitutional.
The girl’s mother is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking.
Oklahoma prisoner says he regrets 2003 killing of girlfriend
A man convicted of at their Oklahoma City home in 2003 said he regrets killing her and didn’t ask a board for clemency.
Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, is set to die by at the state鈥檚 penitentiary in rural McAlester. He would be the third person put to death this year in Oklahoma and the 20th under Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who leaves office in January after eight years.
Olimpia Fisher, 43, planned to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her in one eye and then waited about eight minutes as she screamed for help before firing the fatal shot into her other eye.
鈥淗e made her suffer because she dared to live beyond his control,鈥� Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the state鈥檚 Pardon and Parole Board on July 14.
Last month, the board voted 3-1 against recommending clemency for Cuesta-Rodriguez. His attorneys had asked the board to recommend he serve life in prison, saying he had a difficult childhood in Cuba and suffered from brain damage, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression with psychotic episodes.
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Associated Press writer Jeffrey Collins contributed.
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