Alabama death row inmate at Holman dies at 64

ATMORE, Ala. - Alabama death row inmate David Larry Nelson, on death row for more than 27 years for a killing near Birmingham, has died of natural causes at the Holman prison infirmary, prison officials said Tuesday.

Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said Nelson died Monday about 11 p.m.

He was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1978 shooting death of Wilson W. Thompson in Kimberly, a Birmingham suburb. Nelson was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the fatal shooting of Birmingham cab driver James Cash the night before.

He twice avoided execution dates when stays were granted in 1996 and 2003.

The Supreme Court blocked the 2003 execution shortly before it was to take place, granting a stay to review Nelson's claim that he has collapsed veins and that lethal injection would be so painful it would be "cruel and unusual punishment."

He also received a stay in 1996 because of a physician's statement that he could be a kidney donor for a seriously ill brother - an operation that did not take place. Before the 2003 stay, Nelson had been tried twice and had four sentencing hearings in what has been one of the longest death penalty appeals in Alabama.

According to court records, Nelson was accused of killing Thompson with a shot to the head while Thompson was having oral sex with Nelson's girlfriend, who was also shot but recovered. Nelson and his girlfriend had met Thompson at a bar and talked him into letting them come home with him. Authorities said it was a robbery plot by Nelson.