NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Harold Wayne Nichols, the U. S.
Army veteran who confessed to the 1988 rape and murder of 20-year-old Karen Pulley, was executed by lethal injection Thursday morning at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. In his final moments, Nichols told witnesses, “I know where I’m going. I’m ready to go home.”
The execution came after a 37-year legal battle that saw multiple appeals, a failed clemency request, and a last-minute Supreme Court denial.
Nichols, 64, was pronounced dead at 10:39 a. m. after receiving a single dose of the sedative pentobarbital.
His spiritual adviser, J. R. Davis, stood beside him as they recited the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer.
Officials said Nichols had showered earlier, received visitors, and eaten his final meal the night before — beef brisket, coleslaw, baked potato, onion rings, deviled eggs, cheese biscuits, and fruit tea.
The execution was Tennessee’s 10th since the state resumed capital punishment in 2018. Outside the prison, anti-death penalty protesters gathered, some holding signs that read “Redemption matters.” One faith-based volunteer who knew Nichols during his decades on death row told reporters he believed the man had genuinely changed.
Defense attorney Deborah Drew, however, said the execution sent a clear message that “redemption deserves no mercy.”
Karen Elise Pulley was 20 years old when she was attacked in her Brainerd apartment on the night of Sept. 30, 1988. A student at Chattanooga State Community College, she was pursuing a paralegal career and had recently graduated from Bible College.
Friends and family described her as bubbly, selfless, and full of faith. Her sister, Lizette Monroe, had just returned from an Air Force base in the Philippines and planned to introduce Karen to her newborn daughter. That visit never happened.
On the night of the murder, Nichols, who had a history of prowling and sexual assault, watched Karen’s roommate leave for work. He then entered through a bathroom window, retrieved a 2×4 board from inside the apartment, and climbed the stairs to Karen’s bedroom. She was asleep.
The attack was sudden and violent. Court records show Karen fought back, but she suffered blunt force trauma to the head, causing skull fractures and severe brain injuries. She was found alive but unconscious the next morning and died later that day at a hospital.
The crime set off a 95-day spree of attacks across Chattanooga and East Ridge. Nichols, known as “the red-headed stranger,” targeted at least 12 women. He was finally arrested on Jan.
5, 1989, after an anonymous tip — a personal dispute between two men — led police to him. In a videotaped confession, Nichols described the murder in detail, including the layout of Karen’s apartment and where he had discarded the weapon. That tape became the cornerstone of the case.
At trial in 1990, Nichols pleaded guilty to first-degree felony murder, aggravated rape, and first-degree burglary. The sentencing phase focused on two aggravating factors: his five prior convictions for aggravated offenses and the fact that the murder occurred during a felony. During cross-examination, prosecutors asked Nichols if he would have stopped had he not been arrested.
He answered, “Yes.” The jury deliberated less than two hours before returning a death sentence. Six of those jurors later said they never believed Tennessee would actually carry out the execution.
In a stunning moment after the verdict, Karen’s mother, Ann Pulley, asked to meet Nichols face-to-face. They walked into the jury room alone, and she told him she forgave him — not for his sake, but for her own. She visited him twice more, even giving him a Bible with her daughter’s favorite verses underlined.
Nichols kept that Bible for the remaining 35 years of his life.
The legal fight stretched on for decades. In 1994, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the sentence. The U.
S. Supreme Court declined to review the case in 1995. In 2005, DNA testing definitively linked Nichols to the crime, prompting his defense to drop any remaining innocence claims.
In 2018, prosecutors reached a deal that would have resentenced Nichols to life without parole, but the judge refused to accept it. A 2022 dispute over execution 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 testing delayed the process until December 2024, when a new single-𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 protocol was approved.
Gov. Bill Lee denied clemency on Dec. 9, marking his seventh execution authorization since taking office.
The U. S. Supreme Court declined to intervene hours before the execution.
Nichols had originally selected the electric chair, but when the state asked him to confirm in 2025, he let the deadline lapse, defaulting to lethal injection.
Karen Pulley’s parents, Ann and Chuck Pulley, died years ago, never seeing the day justice was carried out. Family members held a celebration of Karen’s life at home while the execution proceeded. Lizette Monroe, unable to attend, spoke through her husband, Jeff Monroe, who thanked the police, prosecutors, and corrections officials for their work over nearly four decades.
Nichols’ last words were directed to his victims and family: “To the people I’ve harmed, I’m sorry. To my family, know that I love you. I know where I’m going.”
Then the sedative took effect, and the state of Tennessee ended a journey that began with a young woman asleep in her own bed. Whether Thursday’s act was justice or closure — that question, as it always does, remains for the living to decide.