Tennessee executes man on death row for 36 years

WASHINGTON: Tennessee on Thursday electrocuted a convicted murder who had been on death row for 36 years, in a case that renewed debate on use of the death penalty so long after a crime.

David Earl Miller, 61, was put to death at 7.25pm at a high security prison in Nashville, authorities said, over the beating and stabbing death of a young woman with a mental disability. It was the second use of an electric chair in the US in just over a month, after it had not been used since 2013.

Miller was physically and sexually abused as a child and living as a drifter in the early 1980s when a Tennessee pastor gave him shelter in exchange for sex.

Described by a psychologist as a man consumed with rage, Miller exploded on May 20, 1981 while on a date with 23-year-old Lee Standifer.

Miller was convicted of beating and stabbing Standifer to death and leaving the body in a wooded area near the pastor’s home.

Miller was sentenced to death in 1982 and again in 1987 after the state supreme court ordered another trial. — AFP

Michigan cemetery shuttered after discovery of uncremated fetuses

MICHIGAN: A cemetery in Canton, Michigan, was shut down by a state agency after officials found dozens of uncremated fetus remains lacking appropriate documentation, authorities said.

This week’s discovery was part of a criminal investigation into Perry Funeral Home in Detroit, where police said in October that the remains of more than 60 infants and fetuses were found.

The badly decomposed bodies of 11 babies were previously found hidden in a false ceiling at a different funeral home in the city. Of the hundreds of fetuses found at the Knollwood Memorial Park cemetery in Canton and Gethsemane Cemetery in Detroit, 44 did not have proper documentation, Detroit police Chief James Craig told reporters on Thursday. — Reuters