Alabama executes Walter Leroy Moody

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Alabama has executed Walter Leroy Moody, 83, the oldest U.S. inmate to be put to death in modern times. The execution occurred Thursday evening, after a temporary delay because of a pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Moody's final appeal.

Moody was convicted in 1996 in a December 1989 package bombing that killed a federal judge, and was originally scheduled to die Thursday evening at 6 p.m. CDT.

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U.S. 11th Circuit of Appeals Judge Robert Vance Sr. was in his home in Mountain Brook, Ala., nine days before Christmas in 1989, when he opened a package that Moody had mailed to him, authorities have said.

The blast from the package instantly killed Vance and severely injured his wife, Helen, they said.

At his 1996 trial, prosecutors described Moody as a meticulous coward who committed murder by mail because of his obsession with getting revenge on the legal system, and then committed more bombings to make it look like the Ku Klux Klan was behind the judge’s murder.

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