A Tennessee death row prisoner executed by lethal injection Thursday used his final moments to send a message to his son, who was among the witnesses watching the execution.
“Tell my son ‘hello,’” Anthony Hines, 66, said before he was put to death for the 1985 killing of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a 54-year-old mother of four, according to the Associated Press.
Hines had not seen his son since the boy was 3 years old. The two reconnected just four days before the execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Witnesses reported that Hines groaned and breathed heavily during the procedure. He was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m.
Jenkins’ son, Dennis Jenkins, also attended the execution and said afterward that he hoped Hines experienced “severe pain.”
Dennis said his mother had only a plastic spray bottle with which to defend herself when Hines attacked her.
Hines was convicted of fatally stabbing Jenkins while she was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs.
“I hope he felt severe pain because what he did to my mother is nothing compared to what he may have just gone through,” Dennis said.
Hines had unsuccessfully appealed his sentence, claiming the doctor overseeing the execution was incompetent and likely to botch the procedure.
Three inmates were put to death Thursday — marking the first triple execution in the United States in 16 years.
Murderers on death row in Oklahoma and Alabama were also executed through lethal injection.
Typically, there is only one execution scheduled per day, with two executions being rare — but three is “very unusual,” Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robin Maher told USA Today.
Death penalty observers say that double or triple executions are purely coincidental timing.
