A Tennessee death row inmate executed by lethal injection on Thursday directed his last words to his son, who witnessed his killer dad’s execution.
“Tell my son ‘hello,’” Anthony Hines, 66, said before he was put to death for callously murdering mother of four, Catherine Jean Jenkins, 54, in 1985, according to the Associated Press.
Hines last saw his son when he was 3-years-old and the two reconnected four days before the execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Witnesses described Hines groaning and breathing heavily before he was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m.
Jenkins’ son, Dennis Jenkins, was also in attendance for the execution and said he hoped Hines felt “severe pain.”
Dennis said his mother had only a plastic spray bottle to defend herself when she was murdered by Hines.
HInes was convicted of fatally stabbing Jenkins while she was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs.
“I hope he felt severe pain because what he did to my mother is nothing compared to what he may have just gone through,” Dennis said of Hines.
Hines had unsuccessfully appealed his sentence, claiming the doctor overseeing the execution was incompetent and likely to botch the procedure.
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 and Alabama were also executed through lethal injection.
Typically, there is only one execution scheduled per day, with two executions being rare — but three is “very unusual,” Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robin Maher told USA Today.
Death penalty observers say that double or triple executions are purely coincidental timing.
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