The state of Tennessee carried out the execution of Harold Wayne Nichols by lethal injection on December 11, 2025, ending a 35-year journey through the justice system for the 1988 rape and murder of 20-year-old Karen Elise Pooly in Chattanooga. Nichols, 64, was pronounced dead at 10:39 a. m.
at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, becoming the 10th inmate executed in Tennessee since the state resumed capital punishment in 2018. The execution came after a final clemency denial by Governor Bill Lee and a last-minute refusal by the U. S.
Supreme Court to intervene.
Nichols had confessed to breaking into Pooly’s apartment on the night of September 30, 1988, while she slept, and bludgeoning her with a piece of lumber. She died the next day without regaining consciousness. The crime shocked the Brainerd community, where Pooly was known as a bubbly, selfless cheerleader and Bible school graduate who was studying to become a paralegal.
Her mother, Ann Pooly, famously forgave Nichols in the courtroom after his death sentence and gave him a Bible inscribed with her daughter’s favorite verses. That Bible remained on Nichols’ shelf for 35 years.
In his final statement, Nichols said, “To the people I’ve harmed, I’m sorry. To my family, know that I love you. I know where I’m going.
I’m ready to go home.” Spiritual adviser J. R.
Davis stood beside him, and together they recited the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer. Davis later said he believed Nichols’ transformation over decades was genuine. Defense attorney Deborah Drew countered that the execution sent a message that redemption deserves no mercy.
The case revealed deep flaws in the system. Nichols had been convicted of attempted sexual assault in 1984 and served only 18 months of a five-year sentence. A psychological evaluation at his release found “nothing unusual.”
He was arrested for prowling with a knife in 1987 but released again. Weeks later, he killed Pooly. Over the next 95 days, he attacked at least 12 more women before being identified through a jealous tip, not detective work.
Six of the 12 jurors who voted for death in 1990 later said they believed Tennessee would never actually execute him. Two former prosecutors supported clemency. A 2018 deal to resentence Nichols to life without parole was rejected by a judge.
The execution proceeded despite these complexities, leaving a legacy of grief, forgiveness, and unanswered questions about justice and redemption.