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Inmate on death row dies on New Year's Day

A 60-year-old inmate on death row who killed four people in East Tennessee over the course of 26 years died Wednesday at Metro General Hospital.

A preliminary medical report shows that David L. Smith died of natural causes, state Department of Correction spokesman Steve Hayes said.

Smith had been on death row in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville since November 2000. He was convicted of killing two people in Bradley County, Tenn., in 1998.

He was convicted of first-degree murder in one killing and second-degree murder in the other, Hayes said. He received the death penalty for the first-degree murder sentence and 25 years for the other conviction. He was sentenced to six years for theft of property and aggravated burglary.

Smith had served time in prison for killing two people before the 1998 murders, TDOC officials said. He killed two people in Hamilton County in 1972 and was sentenced to serve 50 years and a day in prison for those slayings. However, he was paroled in December 1992.

The last person to die on Tennessee's death row was Robert Glen Coe, executed on April 19, 2000.

There are 93 men and two women serving death sentences in Tennessee.