Alabama executes Jeffery Lee

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WBMA) — Alabama has executed Jeffery Lee, nearly three decades after he was convicted in the 1998 killings of two people during a pawnshop robbery in rural Dallas County.

Lee, 49, was put to death by lethal injection Thursday evening at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. His execution came three months after a federal judge blocked Alabama's plans to execute him using nitrogen gas.

He was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. Central Time, according to the office of Governor Kay Ivey. 

The execution took approximately 15 minutes, according to Lee Hedgepeth, a local journalist who was one of the witnesses. In Mr. Lee’s final words, he expressed his love for his family and “my brothers on life row.” He balled his hands, closed and opened his eyes, and began to breathe heavily, Mr. Hedgepeth said. Within a few minutes, his breathing became irregular; he exhaled, and then he was unconscious.

Lee was convicted in 2000 of capital murder and attempted murder in connection with the Dec. 12, 1998, robbery at Jimmy's Pawn Shop in Orrville. Pawnshop owner Jimmy Ellis and employee Elaine Thompson were killed. Another employee survived the shooting.

Lee's attorneys made a final effort to stop the execution, arguing in part that his jury had recommended life imprisonment without parole by a 7-5 vote before the trial judge imposed a death sentence. Alabama abolished judicial override in death-penalty cases in 2017, but the change was not retroactive.

Alabama was the last state to prohibit the practice. The state still has about two dozen other inmates on death row who, like Mr. Lee, were sent there by judges.

His attorneys also challenged the state's decision to change the planned execution method from nitrogen gas to lethal injection. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Lee's request for a stay Thursday, clearing the way for the execution to proceed.

The case drew renewed attention this year after Alabama's original June execution date was halted when courts blocked the planned use of nitrogen gas. Gov. Kay Ivey subsequently set the new execution date using lethal injection.

Governor Ivey provided the following statement:

In June, after Mr. Lee attempted to avoid his deserved death sentence, I reaffirmed my commitment that justice would ultimately be served. Tonight, that promise was fulfilled for his victims, Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson, as well as for their loved ones who have long-awaited his sentence to be carried out. This case underscores exactly why the law passed in 2017 ending so-called ‘judicial override’ did not apply to existing death sentences like Mr. Lee’s. These victims have waited long enough, and I pray they can feel peace and have closure.

Attorney General Steve Marshall also released a statement.

Twenty-seven years ago, Jimmy Ellis’s and Elaine Thompson’s lives were stolen. They were victims of a senseless, violent robbery-murder. Justice was finally served.

The case against Jeffery Lee was overwhelming and unambiguous. Surveillance footage captured him firing shots. Eyewitnesses confirmed what the camera recorded. And in his own admission, he signed a confession. Court after court, appeal after appeal, the record spoke with one voice, and the verdict held strong.

Over time, it can be easy to look at these convicted murderers as old men rather than the dangerous killers they were when they stole the lives of their victims and terrorized their communities. Those victims are the people I keep in mind.

Nothing can give back what was taken from Jimmy and Elaine and their families, but today we proved that every innocent life is worth fighting for, no matter how long it takes.

In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Lee’s lawyers condemned the state for moving forward. “That is a moral failure, not just a legal formality,” they said. “A state that no longer stands behind the rule that condemned a man but kills him under it anyway has not delivered justice,” his lawyers said. “It has revealed how little its own standards constrain it when it is determined to carry out an execution.”

In the 26 years that he has been on death row, Mr. Lee has become involved in prison ministry. In an interview this month with The New York Times, as his execution loomed, he reflected on how he had wanted to prove to others, as well as himself, that his life was defined by more than his worst sins. 

“Being a good friend, being a good mentor, being a good teacher and preacher of the word of God, being an OK barber,” he said. “I know I am who I’m supposed to be now, and I know what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m doing it.”

Sources: The Associated Press, News outlets, Staff, September 17, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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