Survivor described pretending dead during 1998 pawn shop shooting
Alabama is set to execute Jeffrey Lee, 49, on Thursday by lethal injection — a method he did not choose and that Alabama had initially agreed not to use. The state’s plan follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s June denial of Alabama’s attempt to execute Lee with nitrogen gas, United Press International reported.
Lee was convicted of two counts of capital murder for a 1998 double murder in a pawn shop robbery in Orrville, Alabama. He killed the store owner, Jimmy Ellis, an acclaimed Elvis Presley impersonator, and his ex-wife Elaine Thompson, who also worked at the shop. Ellis’s life and death were documented in the 2015 documentary “Orion: The Man Who Would Be King.”
Helen King, who survived the shooting, described in the documentary how she pretended to be dead on the floor as Lee fumbled with the register.
“I don’t know why somebody would do that to somebody so nice as Jimmy,” she said. “He made you feel like you’re family.”
Lee’s lawyers have said he isn’t trying to halt his execution but wants the state to use the method he chose in a way that doesn’t violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, NBC News reported. Lee has also asked to die by firing squad, though Alabama doesn’t allow it.
Alabama adopted nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in 2024. Since then, seven inmates in the state have died by asphyxiation using nitrogen gas. Witnesses to those executions have said the process takes longer than advertised and leaves the inmate writhing and gasping for air.
The American Thoracic Society filed a brief saying “nitrogen hypoxia executions cause intense, inhumane suffering.”
After the Supreme Court’s June action, U.S. District Judge Emily Marks said Alabama could execute Lee by lethal injection because the federal injunction applied only to the nitrogen protocol. Gov. Kay Ivey then set the new execution date.
“After losing twice in federal court, Alabama now revives the very lethal injection method it promised to abandon,” Lee’s lawyers said in a statement. “Alabama isn’t complying with the Constitution. It’s trying to outrun it.”
When Lee was sentenced, his jury voted 7 to 5 to recommend a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His trial judge imposed a death sentence. Alabama ended the practice of judicial override in 2017.
This execution follows a sequence of federal court rulings in the same case. Alabama had set a June nitrogen-gas execution for Lee while he pursued a federal lawsuit challenging the method, and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later blocked it, allowing the state to pursue other authorized methods. The U.S. Supreme Court’s June denial of Alabama’s nitrogen attempt cleared the way for Thursday’s lethal injection.