TENNESSEE LAST MEAL
SEDLEY ALLEY
June 28, 2006

Last Meal: Alley had a final meal of pizza pockets, ice cream, iced oatmeal cookies and milk.

The skinny: Alley was executed for the rape and murder of a young female Marine who had been out jogging while undergoing aviation training near Memphis.

More skinny: Alley was a civilian married to a military person and was convicted in the abduction, beating, murder and mutilation of a 19-year old Lance Corporal, who was due to graduate from aviation school the next day.

Two marines jogging near where the woman was abducted heard a scream and ran toward the sound, seeing Alley's car drive off. A few hours later, the body was found. Alley was arrested in his on-base housing and admitted to having killed the woman, claiming that he had gone out for more liquor when his car accidentally hit 19-year-old as she was jogging.

An autopsy revealed that her skull had been fractured with a screwdriver. A 31 inch tree limb had been rammed into her vagina so hard that it entered her abdomen and lacerated one of her lungs. Eventually Alley showed police the tree from which he took the limb.

Alley unsuccessfully tried to convince a jury at trial that he had multiple personality disorder.

Legal machinations: Alley’s execution followed a burst of legal activity Tuesday and continued almost until the time Alley brought into the death chamber, at 1:46 a.m. A federal judge issued a stay of the execution around 11 p.m. Tuesday, just two hours before the execution had been scheduled to begin. The state attorney general’s office fought back vigorously, describing the events around Judge Gil Merritt’s last-minute stay as a “highly irregularly and in brazen violation every rule that applies to this situation,” and called his order “unlawful.”

Last words and such: Alley’s two grown children were present at the execution. Before the drugs started to flow into his veins, Alley made a final statement in the death chamber in which he said that he loved them. "Yes, to my children. April, David, can you hear me? I love you. Stay strong." Alley then thanked the prison chaplain and said, "I love you, David. I love you, April. Be good and stay together. Stay strong."

“I love you, Dad, it’s OK,” Alley’s daughter, April McIntyre, was reported to have said.

Factoids: Alley was the...

25th murderer executed in U.S. in 2006
1029th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st murderer executed in Tennesee in 2006
2nd murderer executed in Tennesee since 1976

Alley's execution was only the second in Tennessee since 1960. Robert Glen Coe was executed in 2000 for the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl.

After Alley's execution, Tennessee now has 102 inmates on death row.