Alabama executed Jeffery Lee, who was convicted of killing a nationally known Elvis Presley impersonator, by lethal injection Thursday—three months after a judge’s ruling blocked the state’s plan to put him to death using nitrogen gas.
Lee, 49, was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, officials said.
The execution began shortly after 6 p.m.
In his final statement, Lee said, “All is well. I just want to say to my family, I love them. To my brothers on life row. I love them.”
Lee clenched his fists on the prison gurney as the lethal injection started. His spiritual adviser held his feet and appeared to pray. Lee closed his eyes and did not appear to reopen them.
Alabama had initially scheduled Lee’s execution for June 11 using nitrogen gas, an execution method the state first tested in early 2024. The method has been used several times since, both in Alabama and elsewhere, prompting scrutiny from critics who say it remains poorly understood and could inflict unnecessary suffering.
Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, File
Lee’s first execution date was halted by an unprecedented decision from District Judge Emily Marks. She ruled that Alabama’s nitrogen gas protocol was unconstitutionally cruel and violated Lee’s rights under the Eighth Amendment. Her order permanently barred the state from executing Lee with that protocol, leading the Alabama attorney general’s office to seek a new date using lethal injection.
Lee and his supporters made a final effort to stop the execution, pointing to the jury’s recommendation of life imprisonment—a decision the trial judge overrode. His lawyers also argued that Alabama should not be permitted to change the method of execution.
Twenty-seven people have been executed in the United States so far in 2026, making Lee’s death Alabama’s second execution of the year. In Texas, officials carried out a lethal injection for a man convicted of killing three people at a neighbor’s home. In Georgia, a judge on Wednesday blocked the state’s planned execution of a man convicted of killing two real estate agents.
Lee was convicted in a Dec. 12, 1998, double murder at Jimmy’s Pawn Shop in Orrville, a small community west of Selma. Store owner Jimmy Ellis and employee Elaine Thompson were shot and killed. A second employee survived after pretending to be dead.
The surviving employee testified that Lee entered the shop, asked to look at wedding rings and said he would return after getting money from his grandmother. He came back a short time later carrying a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, Thompson and the other employee. After Lee left, the surviving witness called 911 from the floor.
Ellis was a singer whose voice closely resembled Elvis Presley’s. He developed a national following as an impersonator, performing under the masked name “Orion,” and was featured in a 2015 documentary.
Lee was convicted of capital murder and attempted murder in 2000.
He was among roughly two dozen people on Alabama’s death row who received death sentences despite juries recommending life imprisonment.
The jury in Lee’s capital murder case voted 7-5 for life without parole. The trial judge overrode that recommendation and imposed the death penalty.
Alabama eliminated judicial override in 2017, ending the practice of allowing judges to replace jury sentencing recommendations in capital cases. The change was not retroactive, however, leaving Lee and others on death row subject to their original sentences.
Supporters seeking clemency for Lee gathered Tuesday outside the Alabama Capitol for a rally held under the slogan “HONOR THE JURY.”
Lee’s attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution while it considered whether Alabama could legally switch to lethal injection.
Lee sued Alabama in 2016, challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol. After Alabama approved nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, he selected it as his preferred option. In 2018, he agreed to dismiss the lethal injection lawsuit after the state agreed that “if he is to be executed, defendants will carry out that execution by nitrogen hypoxia.”
Lee’s lawyers argued that agreement barred Alabama from using lethal injection. They said the state could instead revise its nitrogen protocol to comply with the Constitution or execute Lee by firing squad.
“The petition asks this Court to determine whether the State may execute Mr. Lee by lethal injection notwithstanding its prior representation that it would execute him by nitrogen hypoxia,” his attorney wrote in a filing with the high court.
The state attorney general’s office asked the high court to let the execution proceed, arguing nothing precludes the switch to lethal injection.
“An unpunished murder is an intrinsic and ongoing harm to those interests and to the rule of law. Nearly twenty-eight years is decades too long,” lawyers with the attorney general’s office wrote.
For decades, lethal injection was the generally preferred U.S. execution method until problems procuring and administering the drugs led states, including Alabama, to consider alternatives.
Lethal injection remains Alabama’s primary execution method. But in 2024, the state began carrying out some executions using nitrogen gas, which involves replacing breathable air with gas through a respirator mask, causing death from lack of oxygen. Nitrogen has now been used in seven executions in Alabama and one in Louisiana.
