Donald Strouth
After nearly 40 years on Tennessee's death row, Donald Strouth died of natural causes on Wednesday, the Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed to Pith Friday morning. He was 56.
Strouth was sentenced to death in 1978 for the murder of store-owner Jimmy Keegan during a robbery in Kingsport. He was 19 at the time. Jeffrey Dicks was also sentenced to death for the murder and died in prison, of a heart attack, in 1999. Strouth and Dicks had each accused the other of committing the murder.
Strouth is the seventh death row inmate to die of natural causes in the past year and a half.
A month after the natural death of convicted mass murderer Paul Dennis Reid Jr. on Nov. 1, 2013, Tennessee made an unprecedented push to execute 10 death row inmates. Those execution dates have been called off for now amid legal challenges over the state's execution methods.
