Alabama Carries Out Second Execution of 2026

Alabama executed a man by injection on Thursday for the killings of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson in 1998. Jeffery Lee, 49, was pronounced dead at 6:22pm at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, authorities said. Lee's execution was the second in Alabama this year, the AP reports, and the 27th in the US. Three months ago, a judge blocked the state from putting Lee to death with nitrogen gas, ruling that the method violates the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Lee was convicted of the killings during a robbery at Jimmy's Pawn Shop in Orrville, a small town about 65 miles west of Montgomery. Ellis, the store's owner, and Thompson, a store employee, were shot. Another employee survived by playing dead. Ellis, a singer whose voice resembled Elvis Presley's, had gained a national following for a time as an Elvis impersonator. He performed as the masked singer "Orion" and was the subject of a 2015 documentary.