ATMORE, Ala.—A man convicted of the 1992 rape and beating death of a woman is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday in what would be Alabama’s first execution in more than two years.
Christopher Eugene Brooks, 43, is set to die at 6 p.m. CST at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, authorities said.
He was convicted of the 1992 capital murder of 23-year-old Jo Deann Campbell, a woman he first met when they worked as camp counselors in upstate New York. A judge sentenced him to die after a jury recommended a death sentence by an 11-1 vote.
Campbell was seen speaking to Brooks at a restaurant where she worked on Dec. 30, 1992, and she later told a friend that someone was spending the night in her living room, according to witnesses. The next day, Homewood police found Campbell’s partially clothed body under the bed of her Homewood apartment. Prosecutors said she had been bludgeoned to death with an 8-pound dumbbell and sexually assaulted.
Brooks’ bloody fingerprint was on a doorknob in Campbell’s bedroom and a latent palm print on her ankle, according to court records. The documents say Brooks also was found later with Campbell’s car keys and had cashed her paycheck and used her gas station credit card.
While DNA testing was at its infancy at the time, prosecution witness said semen found on the victim’s body was consistent with Brooks’ DNA.
At trial, defense lawyers argued that another man who was at the apartment that night might have committed the murder.
Alabama’s last execution was in 2013. Execution drug shortages and litigation prevented the state from carrying out death sentences in the time since.
Authorities said it would be the first execution since Alabama announced in 2014 that it was changing two of the three drugs in its procedure, including a switch to the sedative, midazolam, to render the inmate unconscious.
