Arizona Executes Leroy Dean McGill, 53, for 2002 Gasoline Fire Murder as U.S. Tallies 12th Execution
Updated
Updated · Fox News · May 20
Arizona Executes Leroy Dean McGill, 53, for 2002 Gasoline Fire Murder as U.S. Tallies 12th Execution
9 articles · Updated · Fox News · May 20
Leroy Dean McGill was pronounced dead at 10:26 a.m. PDT in Florence after a pentobarbital lethal injection, becoming the first of three executions scheduled in the U.S. this week.
McGill, 53, was put to death for the 2002 Phoenix attack in which prosecutors said he doused James Perez and Nova Banta with gasoline and set them on fire; Perez later died and Banta survived with severe burns.
Arizona officials said the execution "went according to plan," and witnesses reported no visible problems inserting IV lines — a point of scrutiny after the state's troubled 2022 execution procedures.
A jury convicted McGill in 2004 in less than an hour and sentenced him to death; courts this year rejected his bid to reopen sentencing, and he waived clemency.
The execution was Arizona's latest since resuming capital punishment in 2022 after an eight-year pause, leaving 108 inmates on the state's death row.
As lethal injection drugs vanish, is the firing squad becoming the grim future of American capital punishment?
One innocent person is freed for every eight executed. Can a justice system with this error rate be trusted with death?