The 4 inmates put to death in Arkansas over 8 days

The 4 inmates put to death in Arkansas over 8 days


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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas executed a fourth inmate in eight days. Here is a look at the inmates the state has put to death during that period:

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LEDELL LEE

Lee, 51, was sentenced to die for the 1993 death of his neighbor Debra Reese, who was struck 36 times with a tire tool her husband had given her for protection. He also was serving prison terms for the rapes of a Jacksonville woman and a Jacksonville teenager.

Lee, who struck Reese 36 times, was arrested less than an hour after the slaying after spending some of the $300 he had stolen from her. He had been released on parole 10 weeks before her death after serving time for burglary and theft. DNA evidence linked Lee to other attacks, including the abduction of Christine Lewis, 22.

Lewis was abducted five days before being found beaten, raped and strangled. Jurors in that trial couldn't reach a decision and prosecutors dropped the case after the state Supreme Court upheld Lee's death sentence for Reese's murder.

Lee was executed April 20.

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JACK HAROLD JONES JR.

Jones, 52, was convicted of killing bookkeeper Mary Phillips in 1995 and trying to kill her daughter, Lacy, during a robbery at an accounting office. Phillips was found naked from the waist down with a cord from a nearby coffee pot tied around her neck. Lacey, left for dead, woke up as police photographed her.

Lacey testified that Jones had visited the accounting office twice on the day her mother died and described his tattoos to investigators. Courts rejected appeals based on Jones' claim that lawyers didn't do enough to keep him off death row.

Jones was executed Monday.

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MARCEL WILLIAMS

Williams, 46, was convicted of suffocating a young mother of two after raping her. Stacy Errickson typically carpooled to work in North Little Rock with a friend, but the 22-year-old drove her own truck on Nov. 20, 1994.

Prosecutors say Williams abducted her when she stopped for gas in Jacksonville, then drove her to various ATMs and had her take out about $350. Police found the woman's hosiery and lunch cooler at a storage facility, then found her beaten and bound body in a park two weeks later.

Williams confessed to killing the woman. His jury deliberated about 30 minutes.

Williams was executed Monday.

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KENNETH WILLIAMS

Williams, 38, initially was sentenced to life in prison for the 1998 killing of University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff cheerleader Dominique Hurd. After jurors spared his life, he turned to the girl's family and taunted them, saying "You thought I was going to die, didn't you?"

Three weeks after his conviction, he escaped by hiding in a container of hog slop being ferried from a prison kitchen to a prison hog farm outside the main gates. Once out, he killed Cecil Boren, who lived near the prison, and stole a truck. During a chase in southern Missouri the next day, Williams crashed into a water-delivery truck, killing the driver, before police captured him.

While in prison, Williams said he had killed another person in 1998.

He was executed on Thursday.

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Follow Kelly P. Kissel on Twitter at https://twitter.com/kisselAP and go to http://bigstory.ap.org/author/kelly-p-kissel to see his work.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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