They also said advanced DNA testing, if conducted, could point to another suspect. His attorneys argued there was no DNA evidence or fingerprints recovered from the scene that implicated him in the killing. She said she paid Arthur $10,000 for the hit job after collecting her husband's $90,000 insurance policy, as the Montgomery Advertiser has documented in detail.Īrthur insisted he was innocent. In multiple trials, she testified that Arthur came to her house dressed in an Afro wig and black face paint and shot her husband as he lay asleep. Shortly after, she was charged with murder-for-hire, and Arthur was charged with aggravated murder. On the day of the murder, Judy Wicker told police that a black man had raped her and fatally shot her husband. During his time outside prison for work, he started having an affair with Wicker's wife, Judy Wicker. At the time, Arthur had been participating in a work-release program while serving a life sentence for the 1977 murder of his sister-in-law. In February 1982, authorities found Wicker dead in his bed with a gunshot wound to his right eye. Most importantly, tonight, the family of Troy Wicker can begin the long-delayed process of recovery from a painful loss." "It went exactly according to protocol," Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn told Al.com.Īlabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement: "Thirty-four years after he was first sentenced to death for the murder of a Colbert County man, Thomas Arthur's protracted attempt to escape justice is finally at an end. ![]() He was dead about 25 minutes later without complications, officials said. "Its action means that when Thomas Arthur enters the execution chamber tonight, he will leave his constitutional rights at the door."Īuthorities began injecting Arthur at 11:50 p.m. "The State's refusal serves only to frustrate any effort by Arthur's attorneys to petition the courts in the event of yet another botched execution," Sotomayor wrote. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying she was concerned about the state's use of the controversial drug midazolam, which has been blamed for unusually long executions and for causing prisoners "excruciating pain." She also said she disagreed with the state's decision to deny phone access to Arthur's attorneys during the lethal injection. The court lifted the stay around 11 p.m., about an hour before Arthur's death warrant was set to expire. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay while it considered last-minute appeals from his defense team. Arthur was initially scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m., but the U.S. ![]() Throughout the evening Thursday, there was a possibility that Arthur would escape yet another execution date.
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