A former U.S. soldier who said an obsession with witchcraft led him to slay a Georgia nurse in a bid to lift a spell he believed she put on him is the first of two more inmates the federal government is preparing to put to death this week.
William Emmett LeCroy, 50, on Tuesday would be the sixth federal inmate executed by lethal injection this year at the U.S. prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Another is scheduled for Thursday of Christopher Vialva, who would be the first African-American on federal death row to be executed this year. LeCroy is white, as were four of the five inmates executed earlier. The fifth was a Navajo.
Critics say President Donald Trump’s resumption of federal executions this year after a 17-year hiatus is a cynical bid to help him claim the mantle of law-and-order candidate leading up to Election Day. Supporters say Trump is bringing long-overdue justice to victims and their families.
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