Ledell T. Lee (July 31, 1965 – April 20, 2017) was an Arkansas death row inmate executed for the 1993 murder of his neighbor, Debra Reese. He was convicted in 1995 and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1997. Reese, 26-years-old at the time of her death, was found dead in her home in Jacksonville, Arkansas, where she had been strangled and beaten with a small wooden bat her husband had given her for protection. Several of Reese’s neighbors said they saw Lee near the house and identified him to police. Lee is alleged to have struck Debra Reese 36 times with a tire iron. He was arrested less than an hour later, allegedly after spending $300 stolen from Reese. Ledell Lee was charged in the crime and convicted by a jury and sentenced to death. After being charged with the murder of Reese, he became a suspect in other crimes. Lee was convicted for the rape of two Jacksonville women and was accused of the murder and rape of 22-year-old mother Christine Lewis. In November 1989, Lewis was abducted from her home where she was later raped, strangled, and eventually killed. Her body was later found at an abandoned home inside a closet. He was put on trial, which ended in a hung jury. When Ledell Lee received the death sentence for Reese’s murder, prosecutors decided not to pursue retrying him for the alleged murder of Lewis. Lee was on death row for 24 years and lived in solitary confinement for many. Lee did an interview with BBC before his conviction in which he said, “my life on death row is like twilight zone”. Ledell Lee was the first person executed in Arkansas since Eric Nance was executed in November 2005. For his last meal, Lee wished to receive Holy Communion. He had no last words. At 11:44 p.m., Lee was given the lethal injection. His eyes closed three minutes later and he did not appear to show signs of discomfort, according to Sean Murphy, a reporter with the Associated Press who attended the execution as one of three media witnesses. “A member of the execution team began a consciousness check at 11:49 p.m. by flicking (Lee’s) head, rubbing his eyes and tapping his sternum. Then at 11:55 p.m. his heart was checked with a stethoscope,” Murphy said.