The federal government executed Dustin Higgs late Friday at the Terre Haute prison complex in Indiana. His time of death was 1:23 a.m. Higgs was convicted in 2000 of kidnapping and first-degree murder for the deaths of three women—Mishann Chinn, 23, Tanji Jackson, 21, and Tamika Black, 19. After falling into an argument with one of the women when they visited his apartment the night before, Higgs handed his friend Willis Haynes a pistol and said that Haynes “better make sure they’re dead.” Haynes, who actually pulled the trigger, received a life sentence for shooting the women, later saying that Higgs “had planned to leave the women there—alive—at the side of the road.” Higgs’ lawyers had argued that his death sentence should be overturned since Haynes received only a life sentence, despite being convicted of identical charges as Higgs and having fired the shots that killed the women.
Higgs is the 13th and final federal death row inmate to be executed after President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to resume executions in the summer of 2020. The federal government put another prisoner to death Thursday night, Corey Johnson, and another Wednesday, Lisa Montgomery. Montgomery was the first woman to be executed in more than 60 years and the only woman on federal death row.
