Three states hold executions on same day for first time since 2010

Aug. 13 (UPI) — Three states executed death row inmates on Thursday, marking the first time in more than 15 years that three executions were carried out in the United States on the same day.

The three men, all convicted of murder, were executed by lethal injection.

The last time three people were executed on the same day was 16 years ago, when, in 2010, three executions were carried out in Ohio, Texas and Louisiana, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center.

It also raises the number of death row inmates executed so far this year to 21, following 47 for all of 2025, which was the most since 53 were killed in 2006.

Oklahoma: Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma was the first to carry out its execution, killing 70-year-old Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez with the three-drug ***tail Thursday morning at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for the 2003 murder of his common-law wife, Olimpia Fisher, 43, as she was trying to escape his abuse. He shot her twice in the face at their Oklahoma City home.

Media witnesses said he was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. CDT.

Cuesta-Rodriguez issued no last words but mouthed “I love you” to two family members, one of whom blew a kiss back to him in response, one of the media witnesses said.

“Justice has been served for Olimpia Fisher whose life was tragically cut short,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, said in a statement.

“I pray that her family finds some measure of peace after enduring 23 years of unimaginable grief.”

Last month, his attorneys argued to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that his life should be spared, but Cuesta-Rodriguez said he didn’t deserve to live.

“You must believe that I deserve to suffer. And you’re right,” he said to Fisher’s daughters, USA Today reported. “It’s time for me to pay for what I did.”

Drummond urged the parole board to deny him clemency, describing Cuesta-Rodriguez in a statement as “a violent domestic abuser and murderer who should not be granted the mercy he refused to show to Olimpia Fisher.”

The board denied the clemency request in a 3-1 vote.

“Nobody benefited from today’s execution and the costs to the people of Oklahoma are steep,” Dr. Elizabeth Overman, chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told UPI in an emailed statement.

“The people in the state are not any safer because Mr. Cuesta-Rodriguez is dead and they are poorer because, counterintuitively, studies show that implementing the death penalty is significantly more expensive than life in prison.”

Tennessee: Anthony Darrell Hines

In its first completed execution of the year, Tennessee killed Anthony Darrell Hines, 66, about 30 minutes after Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead.

Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, the Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement.

He was put to death for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins, 54, a mother of four who was working as a hotel maid when he attacked her. He stole $100 in cash from her, stabbed her to death and stole her car.

He had admitted to stealing the car, but maintained until his death that he did not kill her.

His last words were: “Tell my son hello,” according to TDC.

Jenkins’ daughter, Melissa Jenkins, said in a statement following the execution that while Hines’ death does not bring them closure or their mother back, it does bring “justice.”

“Our focus remains on honoring her memory and finding peace as a family,” she said in a statement. “After so many years, we are finally able to close this chapter of our lives and begin to heal.”

The state carried out his sentence after the Supreme Court early Thursday denied his request for a stay over competency concerns of those conducting and Gov. Bill Lee rejected his request for clemency.

“It would be a grotesque spectacle for Tennessee to move forward with the execution of Darrell Hines given his debilitated medical condition and the many unanswered questions following the botched execution execution attempt of Tony Carruthers,” Hines’ attorney, Kit Thomas, said in a Tuesday statement in response to Lee’s denial.

The execution of Hines was the first since Tennessee failed to kill Tony Carruthers in May. In that case, the doctor couldn’t find a vein for a backup intravenous line. Lee, a Republican, gave Carruthers a one-year stay of execution.

The state would not say whether the same doctor would perform the execution Thursday. The state protects the identity of medical staff in executions.

Thomas argued that there was no presumption that Hines’ execution would be conducted according to protocol, pointing to alleged issues by the person in charge of executing Carruthers. Thomas added those concerns were on top of Hines’ medical condition following recent strokes that left him partially paralyzed and that could enhance the likelihood of him suffering pain during the procedure.

Alabama: Jeremy Williams

Alabama executed Jeremy Tremaine Williams, 42, Thursday evening by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., with Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, clearing the execution to begin at 6:16 p.m.

He was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CDT, the Alabama Department of Corrections told UPI in an emailed statement. He was sentenced to death for the 2021 rape and murder of Kamarie Holland, 5, who was trafficked to him by her mother. Williams told his attorneys not to defend him in the case, and after he was sentenced he ordered them not to appeal.

“Justice has been served,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, said in a statement, alleging Williams committed other crimes against children, including murdering his own 1-month-old daughter in 2005, for which he was charged in 2022.

“This is one of the most atrocious crimes we have seen against an innocent child,” Marshall continued. “This lack of humanity is hard to comprehend.”

He received five visitors and two phone calls on Wednesday and six visitors on Thursday. Hiis final meal request was a cheese pizza, the department said.

Williams never expressed remorse for the murder, only saying that he was just “sick,” USA Today reported.

He will be the first person executed in Alabama after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of Jeffrey Lee, 49, by nitrogen gas.

Kamarie’s mother is serving a 20-year sentence.

There are nine more executions scheduled so far this year, including one on Aug. 18 in Florida.

Two of them have not fought their executions, and one maintains his innocence.