Man faces execution for killing wife decades ago in Memphis

FILE - This undated file image released by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows death row inmate Don Johnson. Pressure from religious leaders for Tennessee's governor to grant mercy to the death row inmate mounted on Monday, May 13, 2019, as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal that could have delayed his upcoming execution. Johnson's petition for clemency has centered on his religious conversion and Christian ministry to other prisoners. He is scheduled to be executed Thursday, May 16 for the 1984 murder of his wife, Connie Johnson. (Tennessee Department of Corrections via AP, File)

A man convicted of killing his wife decades ago at a camping center he managed in Memphis is set for execution in Tennessee.

Sixty-eight-year-old inmate Don Johnson is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday evening for the 1984 suffocation death of his wife, Connie.

Johnson would be the fourth person executed in Tennessee since August, barring a last-minute stay. The last two inmates executed in Tennessee chose the electric chair, saying they believed it offered a quicker and less painful death than the state's default method, a three-drug lethal injection.

Gov. Bill Lee declined clemency requests for Johnson from religious leaders including the president of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church, of which Johnson is a member.

Alabama is also scheduled to carry out a lethal injection Thursday evening .