Three men in three different states are scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday in an unusual same-day cluster of executions across the U.S.
Tennessee is set to execute Anthony Darrell Hines for the murder of a motel maid, while Alabama plans to put Jeremy Williams to death for raping and killing a 5-year-old girl after paying her mother $2,500 to let the child perform a sexual act. Oklahoma is also scheduled to execute Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez for killing his girlfriend.
The Associated Press reported that three states last carried out executions on a single day on Jan. 7, 2010, when prisoners were put to death in Louisiana, Ohio and Texas.
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Three executions were also set to happen on the same day in 2018, though only one took place after Alabama officials struggled to place an IV line and Texas granted a reprieve.
Florida executed two men in one day in July, bringing its total number of executions since the beginning of 2025 to 31.
Eleven states carried out executions last year. If Tennessee and Alabama proceed Thursday, six states will have put prisoners to death in 2026.
Hines, 66, is set to die for the 1985 killing of Catherine Jean Jenkins, a 54-year-old motel maid in Kingston Springs. Prosecutors said Hines stabbed Jenkins while she was at work.
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He was first sentenced to death in 1986, won a new sentencing hearing on appeal and was sentenced to death again in 1989.
His execution is scheduled three months after Tennessee stopped another inmate’s lethal injection when officials could not establish an IV line.
Hines has asked the governor and the courts to intervene, arguing that the doctor involved in the May procedure was unqualified and could cause the same problems during his execution. He also said muscular atrophy and weight loss after two strokes could make it difficult to place an IV.
Officials were able to establish Tony Carruthers’ first IV line quickly during the May attempt. But they spent more than an hour trying to place a second line, his lawyer said after witnessing the procedure. The team tried Carruthers’ arm, hand and foot before moving to a central line.
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Lee stopped Carruthers’ execution and delayed it for a year. Tennessee has not said whether the doctor involved in that procedure will participate in Hines’ execution.
In Alabama, Williams is set to be executed for the 2021 rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland of Georgia.
Williams pleaded guilty, gave up his appeals and asked to be put to death.
Prosecutors said the 42-year-old paid Holland’s mother $2,500 before sexually assaulting and strangling the girl. They said he recorded the attack and kept her body so he could continue abusing it.
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"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."
Williams was also investigated in Alaska in 2005 in connection with his infant daughter’s death, though no charges were filed until 2022.
Alabama has not carried out an execution this year. If Williams is put to death, he would be the first. A federal judge halted a planned nitrogen gas execution in the state back in June after finding the method unconstitutional.
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Oklahoma is also scheduled to execute Cuesta-Rodriguez on Thursday for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend, Olimpia Fisher, at their Oklahoma City home.
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Cuesta-Rodriguez has expressed regret over Fisher’s death but did not ask for clemency.
Fisher was preparing to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her through one eye. He left her to scream for help for about eight minutes, then shot her through the other eye, killing her.
"He made her suffer because she dared to live beyond his control," Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the state’s Pardon and Parole Board on July 14.
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The board rejected clemency in a 3-1 vote last month. Cuesta-Rodriguez’s lawyers had urged the board to let him remain in prison for life, pointing to his difficult childhood in Cuba, brain damage, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression.
If Oklahoma carries out the execution, Cuesta-Rodriguez would be the state’s third execution this year and the 20th under Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.