ATMORE, Ala. (Sept. 17, 2026) — Alabama executed Jeffery Lee by lethal injection Thursday evening at William C. Holman Correctional Facility, after Gov. Kay Ivey denied clemency and the U.S. Supreme Court refused a last-minute stay.

Lee, 49, was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. Central Time, according to Ivey’s office — about three months after a federal court blocked the state’s plan to kill him with nitrogen gas.

He was convicted in 2000 of capital murder and attempted murder in the Dec. 12, 1998, robbery at Jimmy’s Pawn Shop in Orrville, Dallas County. Pawnshop owner Jimmy Ellis, a well-known Elvis Presley impersonator, and employee Elaine Thompson were killed; another employee survived.

Jury said life; judge said death

Lee’s jury recommended life without parole by a 7–5 vote. The trial judge overrode that recommendation and imposed death — a practice Alabama abolished in 2017. The repeal was not retroactive, so older override sentences, including Lee’s, remained on the books.

Ivey leaned into that history in her post-execution statement, saying the case “underscores exactly why” the 2017 law ending judicial override “did not apply to existing death sentences like Mr. Lee’s,” and that the victims’ families had “waited long enough.”

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said surveillance video, eyewitnesses, and Lee’s signed confession made the case “overwhelming,” and that “justice was finally served” nearly 27 years after the killings.

Nitrogen blocked, then lethal injection

Alabama first set a June 2026 nitrogen-hypoxia date. A federal judge ruled the state’s nitrogen protocol unconstitutional as applied to Lee; the Supreme Court later declined Alabama’s bid to proceed with gas. Ivey then reset the date for September and ordered lethal injection instead.

Lee’s lawyers challenged the method switch and sought a stay; the Supreme Court denied that request Thursday, clearing the path for Holman to proceed.

Sources: Office of Gov. Kay Ivey; Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall; Associated Press / ABC 33/40; WVTM; NBC News; CBS News.