If confessed murderer Daryl Keith Holton gets his way, on Tuesday he will become the first prisoner to die in Tennessee's electric chair in 46 years.
Holton, who confessed to shooting to death his three young sons and his ex-wife's daughter with a semiautomatic assault rifle, is scheduled to be executed because he quit appealing his death sentence. He also chose the electric chair over the state's preferred method of lethal injection.
Under Tennessee law, death row inmates can choose between the electric chair and lethal injection if their crimes were committed before 1999.
"It's disfiguring. The family will end up with the body and frequently find burns on the scalp, leg and neck," Webster said. For witnesses "it's unpleasant to see someone shocked and responding to a shock. The odor and the air smells of burning pork."
His lawyers maintain Holton has a long history of mental illness and may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from his military service in the 1991 Gulf War.
