WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather, and Sports |Killer to be executed as planned
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Cecil Johnson, Jr. will be put to death at 1 a.m. for killing three people at a convenience store in 1980.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A Tennessee inmate who has spent the last 28 years on death row for the 1980 killings of a 12-year-old boy and two others will be executed early Wednesday morning as planned.
Cecil Johnson, Jr., 53, filed a last minute appeal Monday but the judge refused to rule, claiming he lacked jurisdiction.
Tuesday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati denied Johnson's motion for a stay.
Johnson was convicted of killing three people at Bob Bell's Market in Nashville during a robbery.
The owner's 12-year-old son was one of the victims and the owner himself witnessed the crime. Two men sitting in a taxi cab were also slain.
Johnson was sentenced to death in 1981.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Corrections said Johnson is currently on death watch at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison.
He will remain in the cell next to the execution chamber with a telephone and a TV until shortly before 1 a.m. Wednesday, when he is set to die by lethal injection.
The spokesperson said Johnson has refused a final meal.
When executed, he will become the sixth person put to death in Tennessee since 2000.
There were no executions between 1961 and 1999.
The last person executed in the state was Steve Henley in February.
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