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Two states in the U.S. carried out executions on Thursday, marking the third and fourth death penalties enforced this week.
In Oklahoma, a man convicted of murdering a woman during a home invasion was executed. In Florida, another individual faced execution for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, as well as the murder of her grandmother.
Wendell Grissom, aged 56, was sentenced to death in Oklahoma for the 2005 murder of 23-year-old Amber Matthews. She was shot in the head while attempting to shield her friend’s two young daughters from danger. According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Grissom was pronounced dead only ten minutes after the execution began at the state penitentiary in McAlester. The execution utilized a three-drug method: Midazolam for sedation, Vecuronium Bromide to stop respiration, and Potassium Chloride to halt the heart.
Court records reveal that Grissom, a truck driver, and an accomplice, Jessie Johns, broke into the home of Dreu Kopf, a friend of Matthews, intending to rob it. While there, Grissom shot and injured Kopf and killed Matthews as she sought refuge in a bedroom, trying to protect the children.
Johns received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
In Florida, Edward James, 63, was executed via lethal injection at 8:15 PM Thursday (0015 GMT Friday) for the 1993 rape and murder of Toni Neuner, an eight-year-old girl, and the murder of her grandmother, Betty Dick, aged 58. The execution took place at Florida State Prison in Raiford, near Jacksonville.
### Recent Executions
Earlier this week on Tuesday, Jessie Hoffman, 46, was executed by nitrogen gas in Louisiana. Hoffman was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of 28-year-old advertising executive Molly Elliott, making him the first person executed in Louisiana in 15 years. Nitrogen hypoxia is carried out by administering nitrogen gas through a facemask, leading to suffocation and is criticized by UN experts as a cruel method.
On Wednesday, Aaron Gunches, 53, was executed in Arizona for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband. Gunches opted to stop all legal attempts to delay his execution.
Since the resumption of the death penalty in 1976, lethal injection has been the primary method for executions in the U.S., although on March 7, South Carolina executed a man by firing squad.
So far in 2023, there have been ten executions in the United States compared to 25 last year. The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 states, with three others—California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania—having active moratoriums. Former President Donald Trump publicly supported the expansion of capital punishment for what he described as “the vilest crimes” on his first day in office.
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