Booking photo of Oscar Smith.
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DEATH row’s oldest inmate left behind an eerie plea with his final words before being executed by lethal injection.

In Tennessee, 75-year-old Oscar Smith faced execution on Thursday morning for the 1989 killings of his former wife and her two teenage sons, marking the state’s first execution since 2020.

Booking photo of Oscar Smith.
Oscar Smith, 75, has been executed by lethal injectionCredit: AP
A woman speaking at a podium with photos of a woman and two young men behind her.
Smith’s public defense representative alongside pictures of his victimsCredit: AP
Empty execution bed on Texas death row.
Smith was strapped down to a bed and had lethal drugs injected into his veins

With his final words, Smith insisted that he was innocent and begged for the justice system to be reformed.

He said: “Somebody needs to tell the governor the justice system doesn’t work.”

Refuting his conviction one final time, Smith said: “I didn’t kill her.”

He was pronounced dead at 10:47am on Thursday after receiving a lethal dose of the drug pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

The Sun recently interviewed a former executioner who witnessed a prisoner’s head catch fire, as well as a pastor who has provided companionship to numerous inmates during their last moments.

Smith was convicted of fatally stabbing and shooting his estranged wife Judith Smith, 13-year-old Jason Burnett and 16-year-old Chad Burnett.

He murdered them at the home in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 1, 1989.

Sentenced to death in July 1990, Smith spent almost 35 years on death row, and was its oldest inmate in the US.

A county judge refused a motion to revisit the case in 2022, even though new evidence suggested that DNA from another individual was discovered on one of the weapons used in the crime.

The judge ruled that the evidence of Smith’s guilt was overwhelming and that the new information did not change that.

I’m a death row executioner – a killer’s head burst into flames when I put him in electric chair

Two of Smith’s colleagues told the original trial that he asked them to kill Judith.

He also had a history of violence and threats against the family.

Further clinching the conviction was the fact that Smith took out insurance policies on all three of his victims.

The court also heard that one of the teen victims could be heard screaming “Frank, no!” in the background of a 911 call at the time of the murders.

Frank is Smith’s middle name, and the one he used regularly.

After Smith had been confirmed dead, Judith’s two siblings said they still miss the three victims, all these years later.

Mugshot of Oscar Smith, a death row inmate.
Smith murdered his ex-wife and her two sons in 1989Credit: AFP
Anti-death penalty protesters demonstrating outside a maximum security institution.
Anti-death penalty protesters demonstrate outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before Smith’s executionCredit: AP

Her sister, Terri Osborne, said the deaths are a reminder of the dangers of domestic violence.

She said: “We know it is an incredibly hard thing to do to leave a spouse who is abusing, but pray that this case becomes a call to action, encouraging those in danger to seek help before it’s too late.”

Smith’s execution was the first in Tennessee since 2020, and he chose the lethal injection – a cocktail of three drugs.

He could alternatively have chosen to be killed in the electric chair.

There has been significant controversy around the method in recent years – with Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court describing it as “the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake”.

Mugshot of Brad Sigmon, death row inmate.
Brad Sigmon, 67, was executed by firing squad in South Carolina in March
South Carolina death chamber with electric chair and firing squad chair.
The chair Sigmon was executed on, left, alongside the electric chair, right, at the South Carolina Department of Corrections

In March, a double murderer called Brad Sigmon became the first person in the US to be executed by firing squad in 15 years.

He reportedly kept breathing after being shot three times in the chest.

Three special bullets were shot at his heart by three volunteer riflemen at the South Carolina Department of Corrections in Columbia.

Sigmon, 67, was convicted of beating to death with a baseball bat his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke, at their Taylors home in 2001.

List of executions so far in 2025

  • January 31: Marion Bowman (South Carolina)
  • February 5: Steven Nelson (Texas)
  • February 6: Demetrius Frazier (Alabama)
  • February 13: James Ford (Florida)
  • February 13: Richard Tabler (Texas)
  • March 7: Brad Sigmon (South Carolina)
  • March 18: Jessie Hoffman (Louisiana)
  • March 19: Aaron Gunches (Arizona)
  • March 20: Wendell Grissom (Oklahoma)
  • March 20: Edward James (Florida)
  • April 8: Michael Tanzi (Florida)
  • April 11: Mikal Mahdi (South Carolina)
  • April 23: Moises Sandoval Mendoza (Texas)
  • April 24: James Osgood (Alabama)
  • May 1: Jeffrey Hutchinson (Florida)
  • May 15: Glen Rogers (Florida)
  • May 20: Benjamin Ritchie (Indiana)
  • May 20: Matthew Johnson (Texas)
  • May 22: Oscar Smith (Florida)
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