Tennessee executes convicted killer by electric chair

The 4th Execution of 2020

Tennessee executed death row inmate Nicholas Todd Sutton in the electric chair Thursday night, marking the fifth time the state has used the method since 2018, reported The Tennessean.

Sutton, 58, was pronounced dead at 7:26 p.m. CST, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.

He was 18 years old when he killed his grandmother Dorothy Sutton, his high school friend John Large and another man, Charles Almon. Sutton didn't receive a death sentence until he fatally stabbed fellow inmate Carl Estep six years later, in 1985.

When the curtain to the death chamber opened Thursday, Sutton looked forward with a solemn expression and made eye contact with media witnesses on the other side of the glass. 

Asked by the prison warden if he had any last words, Sutton spoke at length about his Christian faith. He thanked his wife, his family and "many friends for their love and support as they tried so very hard to save my life."

He spoke about the "power of Jesus Christ to take impossible situations and correct them."

“I’m just grateful to be a servant of God, and I’m looking forward to being in his presence,” Sutton said. "And I thank you."

Nicholas Sutton's last words: 'I’m just grateful to be a servant of God'

A prison chaplain and Sutton's spiritual adviser had served him communion — Welch's grape juice and a wafer — at 3:30 p.m., just before he ate his last meal.

Seated in the electric chair, Sutton closed his eyes as prison officials doused sponges attached to his body with saline solution. Salt water ran down his face before a pair of officers draped a shroud over his head, which had been shaved hours earlier.

Then his body lifted up as jolts of electrocution twice coursed through his body.
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