NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tennessee executed its third inmate this year on Thursday.
Harold Wayne Nichols, 64, was sentenced to death after being convicted for the 1988 rape and murder of 20-year-old Karen Pulley in Chattanooga. He was pronounced dead at 10:39 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville after receiving the lethal injection drug, pentobarbital.
Media witnesses told reporters the curtains to the death chamber opened at 10:25 a.m. Nichols was lying perpendicular to the witness chamber with an IV hooked up to his arm that pumped pentobarbital, the drug the state uses to execute inmates, into his body.
Judge orders Abrego Garcia’s immediate release from ICE custody
Witnesses noted there was blood at the IV site. They said Nichols showed few, if any, signs of distress, and let out a few heavy breaths and groans before turning purple…