Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within a half-hour of each other Thursday, with Alabama carrying out another execution later in the day — the first time since 2010 that three U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection on the same day.
The Tennessee prisoner was executed for the 1985 killing of a motel maid, while the Oklahoma inmate was put to death for murdering his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, officials executed a man convicted of killing a 5-year-old girl after paying the child’s mother to abuse her.
The convergence of three executions on one date was largely a matter of scheduling. Still, it comes amid a broader rise in capital punishment across the United States. In 2025, 11 states executed 47 people, the highest annual total since 2009.
The last time three executions took place in a single day was Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas carried out death sentences. A similar three-execution day was planned in 2018, but only one proceeded after a Texas inmate received a reprieve and Alabama prison staff encountered problems establishing an IV line.
Across the country, 21 executions have been carried out so far this year, including Thursday’s, with nearly a dozen more scheduled, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Florida has carried out 12 executions so far in 2026 — more than the rest of the country combined. In July, the state conducted two executions in a single day.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is set to leave office in January, oversaw a record 19 executions last year, the most in one year for any Florida governor since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Oklahoma prisoner said he regretted 2003 killing of girlfriend
Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in rural McAlester. He was the third person executed in Oklahoma this year.
Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP
Before the execution, Cuesta-Rodriguez turned toward two relatives who were present and mouthed, “I love you.” He gave no final statement.
His breathing was labored for several minutes before he was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. CT.
Convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend at their Oklahoma City home in 2003, Cuesta-Rodriguez said he regretted killing Olimpia Fisher and told a board he didn’t want clemency. His attorneys said he had a difficult childhood in Cuba and suffered from brain damage and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Fisher, 43, planned to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her in one eye and then waited about eight minutes as she screamed for help before firing the fatal shot into her other eye.
Fisher’s daughters, Cinthya Allen and Katya Wallis, said in a statement that they hope the execution brings awareness to preventing domestic violence and they honor their mother by “raising our families to reflect the love and faith in God that she taught us.”
Tennessee man challenged execution after previous one was halted
Anthony Darrell Hines was executed by lethal injection in Tennessee for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins. He was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CT.
Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) Communications via AP
Hines stabbed Jenkins to death while the 54-year-old was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs.
Hines said “not right now, thank you” when asked if he had final words, then said, “Tell my son hello” before he died. Hines’ son witnessed the execution. He reconnected with his father four days earlier after not seeing him since he was 3 years old.
About four minutes after the curtain to the death chamber opened, Hines asked his spiritual adviser: “How long do I have?” Not long afterward, witnesses heard groans and heavy breathing as the spiritual adviser put her hands on his shoulders and prayed over him.
After the execution, Jenkins’ son detailed how his mother was killed with only a plastic spray bottle to defend against the knife attacks.
“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 Jenkins said.
Hines’ execution comes just three months after the attempted lethal injection of another man was stopped as medical staff couldn’t establish a backup IV line for more than an hour.
Hines, 66, appealed unsuccessfully to the governor and the courts, saying that the doctor who oversaw the May execution was unqualified and likely to botch his execution as well.
Alabama inmate pleaded guilty to rape and killing of girl
Alabama executed Jeremy Williams for the 2021 rape and murder of a young Georgia girl. He was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CT following the injection.
Williams, who pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland, declined to appeal and requested that his death sentence be carried out. In letters to the Alabama attorney general’s office, Williams sought an immediate execution date so his victim’s family “may have some type of closure and satisfaction which they deserve.”
Williams, 42, raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform a sex act, prosecutors said, adding he filmed his attack.
“To see on video what he did to this baby, what a grown man could do to a child, it’s shocking, it’s horrible, it’s disgusting,” Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey said. “It’s just a level of evil.”
The girl’s mother is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking.
Williams was also a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska but charges were not filed until 2022.
Corey Holland, Kamarie’s father, said she was an exuberant child who loved princesses and made people laugh.
“She loved playing dress-up, all her little Halloween costumes and her princess stuff I got her. She liked anything girly,” Corey Holland said.
It was Alabama’s first execution of the year. A nitrogen gas execution was put on hold in June after a federal judge ruled the method unconstitutional.
