By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-08-14 01:21:16 | Updated at 2026-08-14 02:14:23
53 minutes ago
Three inmates were put to death Thursday — marking the first triple execution in the United States in 16 years.
Murderers on death row in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama were executed within hours of each other through lethal injection, USA Today reported.
Typically, there is only one execution scheduled per day in the US, sometimes maybe two — but three is “very unusual,” Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robin Maher said.
Death penalty observers say that double or triple executions are purely coincidental timing.
The first two executions took place early Thursday morning, exactly 30 minutes apart.
Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 77, was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. CT in Oklahoma after being sentenced to death for the 2003 murder of his common-law wife, Olimpia Fisher, 43.
In front of the Oklahoma Board of Parole and Pardon last month, Cuesta-Rodriguez said the last thing he deserved was mercy despite his attorneys arguing that he be spared from execution.
“You must believe that I deserve to suffer,” he said.
“And you’re right,” he said, addressing Fisher’s two daughters. “It’s time for me to pay for what I did,” Cuesta-Rodriguez added while addressing Fisher’s two daughters.
Shortly after, Tennessee put Anthony Hines, 66, to death for the 1985 murder of mother of four, Catherine Jean Jenkins, 54.
He was pronounced dead at 10:34 a.m. CT.
Hines fatally stabbed Jenkins while she was cleaning a motel room where she worked as a maid, pocketed $100 cash from her and took off in his car.
He admitted to stealing Jenkins’ car, but maintained all along that he did not kill her.
Later Thursday, Alabama executed Jeremy Williams, 42, for the murder and rape of a 5-year-old girl in 2021.
Williams was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CT.
In December 2021, Williams had taken Kamarie Holland, 5, from her home in Columbus City, Georgia, after he agreed to pay Holland’s own mother to sexually abuse her, USA Today reported, citing police.
Police believe that the girl’s mother, Kristy Siple, who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to human sex trafficking of her daughter, wanted the money to buy drugs.
Williams made Holland smoke meth before raping and strangling her and continued to sexually abuse the little girl after she died.
The inmate requested his attorneys not provide a defense for him at his 2024 trial and ordered his legal team to not appeal the death sentence handed down by the judge.
Unlike most inmates on death row who are often executed decades after their crimes were committed due to drawn-out appeals, Williams was killed just five years after his heinous acts.
The last time the US saw a triple-execution was 16 years ago when Ohio, Texas and Louisiana each executed inmates on Jan. 7, 2010.
Last month, two more inmates on death row were executed by lethal injection in Florida — the first state in nearly a decade to carry out a double execution on the same day.
Former police officer James Duckett, 68, and Dominick Occhicone, 80, were put to death on July 2 in the same death chamber at Florida state prison.
Duckett was sentenced to death for raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl while on duty near Orlando in 1987, while Occhicone — the state’s oldest prisoner in modern history to be executed — received the lethal sentence for fatally gunning down his ex-girlfriends parents in 1986.
