Tennessee execution state’s 1st since 2009
NASHVILLE —Death row inmate Billy Ray Irick died at 7:48 p.m. CDT Thursday after Tennessee prison officials administered a lethal dose of toxic chemicals. He was 59.
His execution, the first in Tennessee since 2009, comes after his 1986 conviction in Knox County for the rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer.
Witnesses to the execution included members of Paula’s family, Knox County Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones, Tennessee Deputy Attorney General Scott Sutherland, Irick’s attorney Gene Shiles and seven members of the media.
Irick is the 133rd person put to death by Tennessee since 1916. Before Irick, all but six executions occurred before 1961.
The execution began later than scheduled, the blinds to the execution room being lifted at 7:26 p.m., 16 minutes later than the expected time of 7:10 p.m
Irick was coughing, choking and gasping for air. His face turned dark purple as the lethal drugs took over, media witnesses reported.
Before his death, Irick ate his last meal: a burger, onion rings and a Pepsi soft drink. Shiles said earlier Thursday that Irick was in good spirits and understood he would be executed.
Irick lived with Paula’s mother and stepfather, Kathy and Kenny Jeffers, in 1985. Although the family allowed the then-26-year-old Irick to live with them for some time, years after the crime they reported
he exhibited signs of mental illness.
Kathy Jeffers was among the small group of Dyer’s family members seen quietly coming and going from Riverbend Maximum Security Institute Thursday evening, walking out after the execution with a tissue in her left hand.
She chose not to speak at a news conference being held afterward outside the prison.
Jeffers had warned her husband she didn’t want to leave the children with Irick the night of Paula’s killing, that she’d seen him muttering to himself in a half-drunk rage on the porch before she left for work.
Court records show the family reported Irick heard voices and was “taking instructions from the devil.” He also reportedly, while carrying a machete, chased after a young girl in Knoxville in the days preceding Paula’s death.
On April 15, 1985, Irick called Kenny Jeffers to say Paula would not wake up.
Her parents found Paula dead on their bed. An autopsy showed she died of asphyxiation. Irick initially tried to hitchhike out of town, but was caught by police the day after Paula’s death.
Before and during his 32 years on death row, Irick repeatedly attempted to convince courts he was too mentally ill to be executed or that the drugs set for use in a lethal injection would violate his constitutional right not to be tortured to death.
While courts did delay his execution several times, most recently in 2014, no court decided to weigh in to prevent his death this time.
Roughly five hours before Irick’s death, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied his request to delay his execution.