Lee Hall was executed Thursday night at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. It was the sixth in a string of executions in Tennessee since a nine-year lapse ended in 2018, and the fourth of those to be in the electric chair.
At 7:13 p.m., a black curtain lifted. On the other side of four rectangular windows, Lee Hall looked from side to side and rolled his tongue in his mouth. Then he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
At 7:14, the warden asked for his last words. Hall said he needed water. Then, he mumbled something, barely audible. But three words came through clearly: hope, forgiveness and love.
At 7:18, the first current jolted Hall’s body in the chair. His fists clenched. Then he slumped back down. The second time, a puff — maybe steam, maybe smoke — rose from the right side of his head. Within minutes, his hands turned blue, and he was pronounced dead.
But Staci Wooten says Hall was no victim. He killed her sister, Traci Crozier, during a domestic dispute 28 years ago.
“Now our family’s peace can begin. But another family’s hell has to begin,” Wooten said after the execution. “Today will not bring my sister or my dad’s daughter back. But now, may she find her peace in heaven with our mom.”
Wooten called Hall a monster. Hall threw a lit container filled with gasoline and paper towels at Crozier during an argument in 1991, burning her alive.
Wooten said she felt a duty to give her sister a voice.
“We all fought this battle for you, Traci,” she said. “And today, we won.”
Hall’s family also provided a statement after the execution, delivered by his attorney, John Spragens.
“We are devastated by the loss of Traci and now Lee. Lee loved Traci more than anything, and we welcomed her into our family and loved her too,” Spragens read. “Now we have all lost, but we find peace in knowing that they are both with the Lord.”
Hall’s family thanked the prison staff and fellow inmates who supported him as he lost his vision. While on death row, Hall became legally blind.
Hall’s brother, David Hall, watched the execution from the witness room, seated between an attorney and a religious advisor.
As prison employees shuffled through the execution chamber, before the curtain lifted, David shrugged off his jacket and leaned forward in his seat. He watched as staff members wrapped Hall’s head and ankles in sea sponge, dripping with salt water, then covered his face with a thick black cloth.
At 7:26, the exhaust fan stopped humming, and David let out a loud exhale. When the curtain lowered and Hall’s death was declared, his brother sighed and said, ‘Now he’s free.’
Samantha Max is a Report for America corps member.
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