NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee executed Harold Wayne Nichols by lethal injection Thursday in Nashville for the 1988 rape and murder of Karen Pulley, a 20-year-old student at Chattanooga State University.

Nichols, 64, had confessed to killing Pulley as well as raping several other women in the Chattanooga area. Although he expressed remorse at trial, he admitted he would have continued his violent behavior had he not been arrested. He was sentenced to death in 1990.

Nichols’ attorneys unsuccessfully sought to have his sentence commuted to life in prison, citing the fact that he took responsibility for his crimes and pleaded guilty. His clemency petition stated “he would be the first person to be executed for a crime he pleaded guilty to since Tennessee re-enacted the death penalty in 1

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