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A man was executed Friday in Alabama after he brutally murdered an elderly woman in 2001 inside her home.
The man’s death took place as state officials resumed lethal injections after the governor ordered an internal review regarding such executions, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Sixty-four-year-old James Barber received a lethal injection while inside a prison, and authorities pronounced him dead at 1:56 a.m.
Who is James Barber? Death row inmate executed in Alabama https://t.co/GxXd8hfRIH pic.twitter.com/TMajlolOQp
MirrorUSNews (@MirrorUSNews) July 21, 2023
The AP report noted that in the final hours, the killer’s attorneys argued the execution should not proceed because of issues officials had with obtaining intravenous access during recent execution instances.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the execution could go ahead.
“Tonight, the justice that James Barber managed to avoid for more than two decades has finally been served. In 2001, 75-year-old Dorothy Epps desperately fought for her life as Mr. Barber brutally and gruesomely beat her to death in her own home,” Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) said of the execution.
In 2004, a judge sentenced Barber to death for murdering Epps, whose body was found by a friend of her family, the AP reported at the time, adding the murderer — who was a handyman and contract painter — was an ex-boyfriend of the victim’s daughter.
