Harold Wayne Nichols is set to die by lethal injection Thursday morning. File Photo courtesy of the Tennessee Department of Correction
Tennessee is set to execute Harold Wayne Nichols on Thursday morning for the rape and murder of a 20-year-old college student in 1988.
Nichols, 64, will be put to death by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. His execution was originally scheduled to take place in July 2020, but Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee delayed it amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
He admitted to police that he killed Karen Pulley while she was in bed in her family’s Brainerd home. He also confessed to multiple other rapes.
Pulley’s sister, Lisette Monroe, told WTVC-TV in Chattanooga, Tenn., that the execution wouldn’t bring closure to her family. Still, she said she “wants and needs to see just happen.”
Another of his victims told The Tennessean she hopes “he gets everything he has coming.”
Nichols’ attorneys said he has spent his nearly four decades in prison rehabilitating and taking responsibility for his crimes.
If carried out, Nichols’ execution will be the third in Tennessee this year and 46th in the United States.
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President Donald Trump makes remarks during a roundtable meeting with high-tech business executives in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wednesday. The president announced that the United States has seized an oil tanker near Venezuela and a revealed a new special corporate immigration gold card focused on keeping students in the United States. Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo
