A convicted killer who fatally shot his girlfriend and her daughters in their Tennessee home nearly 40 years ago groaned in pain as he was executed today.
Byron Black died at 10:43am Tuesday, roughly 10 minutes after the lethal injection started.
‘It’s hurting so bad,’ Black told a spiritual advisor at 10:33am as his execution began. He reportedly did not deliver a formal last statement.
Black, 69, looked around the room and could be heard sighing and breathing heavily, witnesses to his execution allege.
Black was convicted in the 1988 shooting deaths of his girlfriend Angela Clay, 29, and her two daughters, Latoya Clay, 9, and Lakeisha Clay, 6.
Prosecutors said he was in a jealous rage when he shot the three at their home. At the time, Black was on work-release while serving time for shooting Clay’s estranged husband.
He was executed after a back-and-forth in court over whether officials would need to turn off his implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or ICD.
In recent years, Black’s legal team unsuccessfully tried to get a new hearing over whether he is intellectually disabled and ineligible for the death penalty.
The Supreme Court rejected Black’s final appeal yesterday and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee declined to stop the execution.
Black was in a wheelchair, suffering from dementia, brain damage, kidney failure, congestive heart failure and other conditions, his attorneys have said.
The nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center said it’s unaware of any other cases in which an inmate was making similar claims to Black’s about ICDs or pacemakers. Black’s attorneys said they haven´t found a comparable case, either.
In mid-July, a trial court judge agreed with Black’s attorneys that officials must have the device deactivated to avert the risk that it could cause unnecessary pain and prolong the execution.
But the state Supreme Court intervened Thursday to overturn that decision, saying the other judge lacked authority to order the change.
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.