Executed Inmate's Final Words: 'I Didn't Do It'

Daniel Lewis Lee is first federal inmate executed in nearly 2 decades
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 14, 2020 7:41 AM CDT
Executed Inmate's Final Words: 'I Didn't Do It'
Daniel Lewis Lee in 1997.   (Dan Pierce/The Courier via AP, File)

The first federal execution in nearly 20 years has taken place. Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, of Yukon, Okla., died by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., reports the AP. The move came after the Supreme Court cleared the way in an overnight ruling. Lee was convicted of killing gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell, in Tilly, Ark., in 1996, as part of a plot to carve out a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest. “I didn’t do it," said Lee before he was executed. "I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I’m not a murderer. ... You’re killing an innocent man.” Two other federal executions are scheduled later this week.

(More death penalty stories.)

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