Tennessee resuming executions after dates set for 3 more inmates

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WDEF) – After pausing executions because of the pandemic, the state of Tennessee is ramping them up again.

The plan now is for an execution every other month, beginning next month.

The state has added three more dates for the year.

April 21: Oscar Franklin Smith

June 9: Harold Wayne Nichols

August 18: Byron Black

October 6: Gary Sutton

December 8: Donald Middlebrooks

— Oscar Franklin Smith was convicted of killing three family members in Nashville in 1989.

The victims were his estranged wife and her 13 and 16 year old sons.

Investigators say he stabbed and shot them.

At the trial, they played a 911 call where the boys cried out “Frank, no! God help me!”

They also found a bloody hand print attributed to Smith on the bedsheet next to his wife’s body.”

— Harold Wayne Nichols was a notorious criminal from Chattanooga.

He was a serial rapist who was eventually convicted and sentenced to die for the rape and murder of 21 year old Karen Pulley in 1988.

He terrorized the city in a spree of attacks on women downtown and in Brainerd that kept escalating.

At trial, prosecutors showed he killed Pulley by hitting her with a heavy board.

— Byron Black was given the death penalty for murdering his girlfriend and her two daughters in Davidson County in 1988.

The girls were 6 and 9 years old.

Prosecutors say he was in a jealous rage when he shot all three.

He was on work-release at the time for shooting his girlfriend’s estranged husband.

His attorneys are arguing that he should not be executed because he has an intellectual disability.

— Gary Sutton was one of two men convicted for the murder of a man in Blount County in 1992, shooting him with a shotgun.

The three had been drinking and playing pool together earlier in Maryville.

Both suspects were also convicted of killing the victim’s sister, who came looking for him the next day.

Both men were given the death penalty.

— Donald Middlebrooks was convicted for torturing and killing a 14 year old boy in Nashville in 1987.

He, his 17 year old wife and a 16 year old friend chased the black youth from a flea market and dragged him into a wooded area.

Over the next several hours, they beat and choked him, raped him with a stick, cut an “X” pattern into his chest and urinated on him.

Finally, Middlebrooks stabbed him to death.

His attorneys also argued that Middlebrooks is seriously mentally ill.