Arizona carries out its first execution since 2022

A 53-year-old man convicted of murder was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, becoming the third person executed in the United States this month, officials said.

Death row inmate Aaron Gunches had fought for more than a decade to be put to death for the 2002 murder of his then girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, even recently waiving his right to a clemency hearing.

The execution began just after 10 a.m. local time at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Florence and it took about 17 minutes for Gunches to die, according to media witnesses. The time of death, according to the witnesses, was 10:33 a.m.

Asked by prison officials if he had any last words, Gunches shook his head no and closed his eyes, according to the media witnesses. A short time later, the lethal injection of pentobarbital was administered to his left arm, the witnesses said.

Gunches was the first person executed in Arizona since 76-year-old Murray Hooper, convicted of murdering two people in 1980, was given the ultimate punishment in November 2022.

Gunches was arrested for kidnapping and killing 40-year-old Ted Price by shooting him four times in the Arizona desert near Mesa. Gunches pleaded guilty to the charges in 2007. In 2022, Gunches asked the Arizona Supreme Court to issue an execution warrant. The state Supreme Court honored his request, issuing the execution warrant on Feb. 11.

During a post-execution news conference, Price's sister, Karen Price, said Gunches' execution "marks the final chapter in a process that has spanned nearly 23 years."

She said her brother, who was 15 months older than she, moved back to Arizona from their hometown in Utah to pursue a degree as a radiology technician. She said Ted Price was temporarily staying with his ex-girlfriend, whom he confronted about allegedly using methamphetamine in front of him with her teenage daughter and in the presence of her younger child.

Karen Price, citing police and court records, said that when her brother threatened to report his ex-girlfriend to authorities, an argument broke out and she hit him with a telephone before calling Gunches, who kidnapped her brother at gunpoint, drove him into the desert and fatally shot him.

"Ted was killed for doing the right thing. A senseless crime robbed the world of a genuinely kind man," said Karen Price, who witnessed Gunches' execution.

Price's daughter, Britney Kay Price, also attended the execution. She wrote a statement that was read at the news conference by a victim services advocate, declaring that she felt as if a "huge weight has been lifted."

"The pain of reliving the circumstances surrounding my father's death for over two decades had taken a significant toll on my family and me," Britney wrote in the statement. "Today marks the end of that painful chapter and I couldn't be more grateful."

Gunches was initially scheduled to be executed in April 2023, but Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs called it off and ordered a review of the state's death penalty procedures.

Gunches was the third person executed in the United States this month, and the eighth this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

On Tuesday evening, convicted murderer Jessie Hoffman Jr. was executed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary with a lethal dose of nitrogen gas, marking the first time the state had used the method after resuming executions after a 15-year hiatus. Hoffman was convicted of killing 28-year-old Mary "Molly" Eliott in New Orleans in 1996.

On March 7, Brad Sigmon was executed by firing squad at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia South Carolina. The 67-year-old Sigmon, the first U.S. prisoner in 15 years to die by firing squad, was convicted in 2002 of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents, David and Gladys Larke by beating with a baseball bat at the couple's home in Greenville County, South Carolina.

Twenty-one additional executions have been scheduled in nine states in 2025, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.