A killer said he had no last words before being executed – but after receiving a lethal injection, moaned about excruciating pain.
Byron Black, 69, said, ‘No sir,’ when offered a final chance to speak, said Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada.
The curtain of the death chamber at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville opened for media to watch at 10.31am on Tuesday.
Black received a lethal injection as his hands and chest were restrained to a gurney. He looked around the chamber, breathing and sighing heavily, and lifted his head from the gurney several times, according to witnesses.
‘Oh, it’s hurting so bad,’ said Black.
His spiritual adviser said: ‘I’m so sorry. Just listen to my voice.’
The adviser sang and prayed over Black and touched his face.
Black was pronounced dead at 10.43am, roughly 10 minutes after the deadly concoction was administered into his system through an IV.
His attorney had argued that the chemicals could trigger his implanted heart device to shock him and cause extra suffering that is unconstitutional. But authorities denied the request to have Black’s defibrillator removed before his execution.
All seven media member witnesses said Black appeared to be experiencing discomfort.
Black was wheelchair-bound and suffered from numerous health conditions including congestive heart failure, kidney failure, brain damage and dementia.
Data from Black’s heart device will be reviewed as part of his autopsy, according to his lawyer.
‘I interpret that my client was tortured today,’ said his attorney, Kelley Henry.
He is the only known death row inmate to have made claims around an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator or pacemaker, according to his lawyer and the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
Black was convicted of shooting dead his girlfriend, Angela Clay, 29, and her two daughters, Latoya Clay, 9, and Lakeisha Clay, 6, at their home in 1988.
At the time, he was on work-release as he served a sentence for fatally shooting Clay’s estranged husband. Black was in a jealousy-fueled rage, according to prosecutors.
Angela’s sister, Linette Bell, after the execution stated through a victim’s advocate that Black’s family ‘is now going through the same thing we went through 37 years ago’.
‘I can’t say I’m sorry because we never got an apology,’ said Bell.
But Henry denounced the execution, stating: ‘Today, the state of Tennessee killed a gentle, kind, fragile, intellectually disabled man in a violation of the laws of our country simply because they could.’
Black was executed nearly a year after Alabama executed death row inmate Alan Miller using nitrogen hypoxia after a botched attempt at a lethal injection in 2022 when an executioner could not find a vein.
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