Tennessee death row inmate Harold Wayne Nichols is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. Dec. 11.

Nichols, 64, was sentenced to death for the brutal beating and rape of 20-year-old Karen Pulley .

On Sept. 30, 1988, Nichols parked near Pulley’s Brainerd area home in Chattanooga where she lived with two other women, according to federal court records. Nichols armed himself with a two-by-four piece of lumber, climbed through a bathroom window and found Pulley alone in her bed. More: Friends describe dread as Harold Wayne Nichols' execution day nears

He struck her in the head before he raped her, court records said. She died at the hospital the next day.

The execution is set to take place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

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