ATMORE, Ala. -- An Alabama inmate convicted of the mail-bomb slaying of a federal judge in 1989 was executed by lethal injection Thursday, becoming the oldest prisoner put to death in the U.S. in modern times.
Walter Leroy Moody Jr., 83, was pronounced dead at 8:42 p.m. He had no last statement and did not respond when an official asked if he had any last words shortly before the chemicals began flowing.
Authorities said Moody sent out four mail bombs in December 1989, killing Judge Robert S. Vance, a member of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Alabama and Robert E. Robinson, a black civil-rights attorney from Savannah, Ga.
Moody became the oldest U.S. inmate put to death since executions resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
A Section on 04/20/2018