An Arizona man convicted in the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old girl has been put to death in the state’s second execution since officials started carrying out the death penalty this year after a hiatus that lasted nearly eight years.
June 8, 2022, 5:57 PMFILE - This undated file photo provided by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry shows Frank Atwood, who was sentenced to death for his murder conviction in the 1984 killing of 8-year-old Vicki Hoskinson in Pima County, Ariz. Atwood is scheduled to be executed on June 8, 2022, by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence, Arizona. On Tuesday, June 7, 2022, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Atwoods bid to delay his execution.
Atwood was the second Arizona prisoner to be put to death in less than a month. The execution of Clarence Dixon in May ended Arizona's halt to executions that was blamed on the difficulty of obtaining lethal injection drugs and criticism that a 2014 execution in the state was botched.
Bud Foster, a journalist for KOLD-TV who witnessed the execution of Atwood and has witnessed other executions, said the process of setting up IVs into Atwood for the lethal injection went smoothly and that “it was probably the most peaceful of any of the executions that I witnessed in the past.” Joseph Perkovich, one of Atwood’s attorneys, said in a statement that his client’s execution doesn’t resolve what he said were unanswered questions about the case.“The state of Arizona executed Frank Atwood despite lingering doubts about his guilt,” Perkovich said. “The case against Frank was purely circumstantial and significant evidence pointed to another suspect.”
Authorities have said Atwood kidnapped Vicki Lynne, whose remains were discovered in the desert northwest of Tucson nearly seven months after her disappearance. Experts could not determine the cause of death from the remains, according to court records.
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