Tennessee Executes Man Who Killed 3 in Robbery

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A man who spent 28 years on death row for killing three people while robbing a Nashville convenience store has been executed.

A Tennessee Corrections Department spokeswoman says 53-year-old Cecil C. Johnson Jr. was pronounced dead at 1:34 a.m. Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

The victims included the market owner's son, 12-year-old Bobby Bell Jr., and two men sitting in a cab outside.

Johnson was a 23-year-old kitchen worker at Vanderbilt Hospital at the time. His father turned him in two days after the July 1980 shootings.

Johnson is the sixth person put to death in Tennessee since 2000. There were no executions between 1961 and 1999.

Johnson declined an interview request from The Associated Press before his execution.