Alabama on Thursday executed Walter Moody, an 83-year-old man convicted of murdering a US judge and a lawyer with pipe bombs, officials said.
Moody is the oldest person to be executed in the United States since the country reinstated capital punishment in the 1970s, replacing John Nixon, who was put to death at age 77 in 2005, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Centre.
This May 2, 1990 file photo shows Walter Leroy Moody, who was convicted in 1991 of the 1989 mail bomb death of Judge Robert S. Vance. Photo: AP
“Walter Leroy Moody has been executed for the 1989 murder of Federal Judge Robert Vance,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey’s office said in a statement.
“He was also convicted of a similar pipe bomb death of a Georgia lawyer,” according to a statement from the state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall.
Vance was killed and his wife injured when a bomb exploded at their home in Birmingham, Alabama, in December 1989.
Lawyer Robert Robinson was killed in the same way two days later in Savannah, Georgia. He had represented a black rights association.
