Warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault which some readers may find distressing.
Three executions are scheduled to be carried out in the US on the same day next week, marking only the second time this has happened in the country’s history, with one of the inmates having spent more than four decades on death row.
Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to broaden the use of the federal death penalty, while a number of individual states have also moved more quickly to carry out executions.
On August 13, Jeremy Williams, Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez and Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines are all due to be executed by lethal injection in separate states. The only other time three executions were scheduled for the same day in the US was January 7, 2010.
Williams, 41, is set to be executed in Alabama. He was convicted over the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl, Kamarie Holland, in Russell County in 2021. The victim’s body was found in a Phenix City basement with a rope around her neck.
He pleaded guilty to four counts of capital murder, and prosecutors said he abducted the child before sexually assaulting and strangling her. Williams waived his right to appeal and has requested a speedy execution as a sign of remorse.
Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, is due to be executed in Oklahoma for the 2003 killing of his wife, Olimpia Fisher.
At a clemency hearing held in July, Fisher’s daughter, Katya Wallace, said:
“He was an extremely over-obsessive, selfish, calculated person.
“Every trigger, every lost moment, every piece of joy that has turned into pain, was his deliberate choice. My family has been crushed by this.”
According to case details, Fisher had been asleep in a spare bedroom when Cuesta-Rodriguez woke from a drunken sleep and accused her of being unfaithful. An argument followed, during which he allegedly shot her in the right eye.
During the same hearing, Cuesta-Rodriguez reportedly told the Oklahoma Board of Parole and Pardon:
“You must believe that I deserve to suffer. And you’re right.
“It’s time for me to pay for what I did.”
Hines, 66, is the third inmate scheduled to be executed that day, with Tennessee set to carry out the sentence. He has spent more than 40 years on death row, having been sentenced to death in 1986 for the 1985 murder of Katherine Jean Jenkins.
He was sentenced to death over the 1985 murder of motel housekeeper Katherine Jenkins in Kingston Springs. Prosecutors said Hines checked into the motel while traveling through Tennessee, then repeatedly stabbed Jenkins, 54, to death while robbing the motel, taking about $100 during the attack.
Court evidence, including findings from a post-mortem examination, also indicated that Jenkins had allegedly been sexually assaulted during the robbery. The judge cited that allegation as an additional factor in imposing the death sentence. Hines’ attorneys have sought a stay of the execution, citing Tennessee’s failed execution attempt in May 2026 involving inmate Tony Carruthers, when medical personnel were unable to establish intravenous access.
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org