Tennessee Performs Its Third Execution for 2025

The Victims Sister Called It Decades of Hell

Harold Wayne Nichols was pronounced dead at 10:39 a.m. on December 11, 2025, inside a Nashville prison.

He had spent 35 years on death row for raping and murdering Karen Pulley, a 20-year-old Chattanooga State student who dreamed of becoming a paralegal.

Her sister Lisette Monroe traveled from the Pacific Northwest to witness the execution, carrying decades of grief that reopened every time the case resurfaced.

The family had been here before, twice, only to have the execution delayed. This time, it wasn’t.

Nichols Apologizes in His Final Statement

Before the lethal injection began, a spiritual adviser stood beside Nichols and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Both men became emotional.

Nichols nodded along, then spoke his last words: “To the people I’ve harmed, I’m sorry. ” Witnesses said he looked around the room as the drug took effect.

Within minutes, he was unconscious. The Tennessee Department of Correction pronounced him dead at 10:39 a.m. , making him the third person executed in the state in 2025 and the 45th nationwide.

Karen Pulley Was 20 and Studying to Be a Paralegal

Karen Pulley had just finished Bible school and enrolled at Chattanooga State to become a paralegal. Her brother-in-law Jeff Monroe described her as “bubbly, happy, selfless, and looking forward to the life before her.”

She lived in a home in Chattanooga’s Brainerd neighborhood with two roommates.

Her sister Lisette, three years older, had just returned from living overseas on an Air Force base with her husband. The two sisters had been inseparable growing up and spent every Sunday together after church.

Nichols Broke Into Her Bedroom While She Slept

On the night of September 30, 1988, Nichols broke into the house where Pulley lived. Her roommates were not home.

He found her asleep in her upstairs bedroom and attacked. Court records describe a violent assault in which Pulley fought back.

Nichols later told investigators he experienced a “strange, energized feeling” when he committed acts of violence, something he had never told anyone or sought help for.

He was 27 years old, married, and working as an assistant manager at a local pizza shop.

He Beat Her With a Two-By-Four Board

During the attack, Nichols picked up a two-by-four board inside the home and struck Pulley in the head at least twice. After raping her, he continued to hit her with what court documents called “great force.”

The blows fractured her skull and caused massive brain injuries. Nichols left her bleeding on the floor beside her bed.

He disposed of the murder weapon and went home. For the next three months, he continued to roam Chattanooga at night looking for victims.

Her Roommate Found Her Alive the Next Morning

The next morning, one of Pulley’s roommates came home and discovered her lying in a pool of blood on the floor next to her bed. She was still alive but unconscious.

Emergency responders rushed her to the hospital, but doctors could not save her. Karen Pulley died later that day from her injuries.

She was 20 years old. Her family would spend the next 37 years waiting for the man who killed her to face execution.

Police Caught Nichols Three Months Later

Nichols continued attacking women in Chattanooga through December 1988 and into January 1989. On January 5, 1989, police arrested him on unrelated rape and burglary charges after receiving a tip.

The next day, a Chattanooga detective questioned him about Pulley’s murder.

Nichols confessed on videotape, describing the layout of her home, how he entered, and what he did to her. That confession became the key evidence linking him to the crime.

He Admitted to Raping at Least Four Other Women

During police interviews, Nichols confessed to raping at least four other women in the Chattanooga area over a two-month period before his arrest.

He was convicted on five counts of aggravated rape involving four victims. At trial, Nichols admitted he would have continued his violent behavior if he had not been caught.

Prosecutors used his pattern of attacks and his own confession to argue for the death penalty.

The Victims Mother Met With Him and Forgave Him

After the jury sentenced Nichols to death in 1990, Karen’s mother Ann Pulley asked to meet with him. They went to the jury room alone.

According to Nichols, she told him, “I forgive you because I don’t want to carry that with me.”

She visited him twice more in the county jail and gave him a Bible with an inscription: “Presented by Karen’s mother with prayers for your salvation.”

Nichols kept that Bible for 35 years and held it in a video his attorneys released before his execution.

Two Delays Pushed the Execution to 2025

Nichols was first scheduled to die in July 2020, but Governor Bill Lee called off the execution because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A second date in June 2022 was canceled after an independent review found that Tennessee had not properly tested lethal injection drugs for any of the seven executions carried out since 2018.

The state developed a new protocol using a single drug, pentobarbital, and resumed executions in May 2025. Nichols was the third person put to death under the new system.

Karen’s Sister Calls It 37 Years of Hell

Lisette Monroe told reporters that waiting for Nichols’ execution had been “37 years of hell. ” Every time the case resurfaced, she said, it reopened a wound that never fully healed.

After Karen’s murder, Monroe and her husband tried to settle in Chattanooga, but reminders of the crime were everywhere. They eventually moved to the Pacific Northwest.

She said the execution would not bring closure, but her family “wants and needs to see justice happen.

The Family Hopes to Finally Focus on Happy Memories

Karen Pulley’s family released a statement calling her “an angel on loan from heaven” who “should not have been taken away in this brutal, violent way.”

Her brother-in-law said the family was “destroyed by evil” the night she died and took no pleasure in Nichols’ death. But he added that the crimes were “deliberate, violent, and horrific.”

Lisette Monroe said she hopes that now, after 37 years, she can visit her sister’s grave and finally say, “It’s over.”

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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