Nathaniel Woods, who was convicted in the 2004 killing of three police officers but who was not the trigger man, was executed Thursday night in Alabama, according to media reports.
Woods was executed by injection and died at 10:01 p.m. ET, according to Josh Gauntt of WBRC, a Fox affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey released a statement after the execution.
Kim Kardashian West sent prayers to Woods’ family.
The son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as Woods’ family members, asked the governor to stop Thursday’s execution.
Martin Luther King III tweeted "the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Governor of the State of Alabama are reprehensible, and have potentially contributed to an irreversible injustice."
Woods and co-defendant Kerry Spencer were convicted of capital murder for the 2004 killings of Birmingham police officers Carlos Owen, Harley A. Chisholm III and Charles R. Bennett. Spencer was also sentenced to death for the killings.
Prosecutors said the officers were gunned down in an ambush as they tried to serve a misdemeanor warrant on Woods at a home where he and Spencer sold crack cocaine.
“There is no evidence that there was any plan or scheme to kill the police officers; they were killed by one man (Spencer) acting alone,” a news release about the letters stated.
Martin Luther King III sent Ivey a March 3 letter “pleading with you not to execute Nathaniel Woods.” King wrote on Twitter on Tuesday the execution is an “injustice.”
Prosecutors in 2005 maintained that Woods helped set an ambush for the officers even though Spencer was the trigger man.
“By the time help arrived, the other three officers were dead. Officer Bennett was discovered with a smoking hole in his face, and Officers Owen and Chisholm were found in the apartment. Each had died from multiple gunshot wounds,” the Alabama attorney general’s office said in a request to schedule the execution date.
A jury convicted Woods of multiple counts of capital murder and of the attempted murder of another officer.
State attorneys said that while Woods was awaiting trial, deputies found a drawing of a bullet-riddled police car in his cell and song lyrics about killing such as, “Haven’t you ever heard of a killa I drop pigs like Kerry Spencer.”
The U.S. Supreme Court turned down his appeal last year. Attorneys for Woods unsuccessfully appealed his conviction, arguing that he had ineffective counsel and the trial had multiple errors, including the admission of the song lyrics and drawings in his cell.
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His attorneys filed a new challenge related to what they said was a lack of information given to inmates when they had to select if nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method authorized but not yet implemented by the state, would be their preferred execution method. Woods did not make a selection.
Rich Barak of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributed to this report.
