Execution carried out for Gregory Hunt
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Gov. Ivey, AG Marshall release statements
Special to the News
The execution of Alabama death row inmate Gregory Hunt was carried out by nitrogen hypoxia on June 10, at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. He was pronounced deceased by a physician at 6:26 p.m.
On June 9, Hunt had four visitors and no phone calls. On June 10, he had two visitors, no
phone calls, and he accepted his breakfast and lunch trays, but refused the dinner tray as his final
meal.
Hunt was sentenced to death for the 1988 capital murder of Karen Lane in Walker County.
A brief press conference followed the execution at the Media Center with remarks from Alabama
Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm. Commissioner Hamm read a prepared
statement from the family of the victim.
The inmate’s remains will be released to the Escambia County coroner and transported to the
Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences (Mobile Lab) for a postmortem examination.
On June 10, Gov. Kay Ivey told Corrections Commissioner John Hamm that she would not exercise her clemency powers in the case and directed him to proceed with Hunt’s lawfully imposed death sentence.
Following the execution Ivey also issued the following statement, “Decades ago, Karen Lane at only 32 years old experienced unimaginable final hours of her young life. Tonight, the state carried out the lawfully imposed punishment for Gregory Hunt who is undeniably guilty. And after his last-minute attempts to evade justice, he has faced the consequences of his evil crimes against Karen Lane, actions he has admitted to, even in a letter to the victim’s heartbroken father. Alabama stands with Karen Lane, and we pray her loved ones can finally find peace and closure.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued the following statement after Hunt’s execution, “Tonight, we pause to reflect on a long-overdue moment of justice for Karen Sanders Lane and for the family that has carried the weight of her loss for 35 years. Karen was a young woman whose life was stolen in the most brutal and dehumanizing way imaginable.
“Gregory Hunt spent more time on death row than Karen spent alive. If he had any real evidence of innocence, he had more than three decades to present it. He did not. What he and his supporters offered instead was a last-minute spectacle aimed at rewriting history and distracting from the truth.
“My team never gave up. Karen deserves more than silence. She deserves to be remembered for who she was, and yet some have made this case about her killer, barely mentioning her name. That is not justice. That is a disgrace.
“Karen Lane was a daughter and a sister. She was a human being. And tonight, we honor her by speaking the truth and by refusing to let it be buried under political theater.”
Tuesday’s execution was the fifth time Alabama successfully used nitrogen hypoxia as the method of execution. Many death-row inmates have elected this method since the state made that choice available in 2018. The Department of Corrections first used this humane and effective method in January 2024.
Attorney General Marshall cleared the execution to commence at 5:56 p.m. Gregory Hunt’s time of death was 6:26 p.m.
Summary of Hunt’s Crimes
Karen Sanders was born on June 5, 1956, to William O. and Betty Jo Sanders in Jasper, Ala., the second of two daughters. She grew up in Walker County and eventually married A.C. Lane, but the relationship didn’t last. By the summer of 1988, they had separated.
Karen had previously lived in a house next door to her parents, but in July, she began spending some nights with her good friend Tina Gilliland, who lived in an apartment in Cordova with her children.
Unfortunately, Karen began dating Tina’s cousin, Gregory Hunt, around that time. A Florida native, Hunt was a newcomer to the area, having moved to live with his mother and stepfather only a few months prior. By then, he’d twice been married and had possibly fathered a child.
Karen’s mother did not approve of her daughter’s new boyfriend, and after two weeks, even Tina asked Karen to tell her cousin not to come back to her apartment.
By August 1, Hunt and Karen’s relationship was frayed beyond repair. Over the course of that evening, Hunt expressed his anger with Karen to multiple individuals, chased her through Cordova and set her house on fire.
Early on August 2, he finally broke into Tina’s apartment and beat Karen to death.
The pathologist identified about sixty injuries on Karen’s corpse: some twenty bruises and lacerations to her head, including swollen lips, black eyes, a broken nose, and a broken cheekbone; four bruises on her neck and a broken hyoid bone; bleeding under the scalp and bruises on her brain; and bruises, scrapes and lacerations on her chest and limbs.
Twelve of her ribs were broken on each side, as was her breastbone. Her heart, lungs and pancreas were bruised, and she had tears in her liver. Karen Lane died from blunt force trauma at the age of 32, her bloodied body left on the kitchen floor with a broomstick “laying in a suggestive position” between her legs and fresh semen in her mouth.
At trial, Hunt was convicted of capital murder by a jury of his peers and sentenced to death for his crimes.
