Final words of death row's oldest inmate as he is executed for killing his estranged wife and sons

Friday, May 23, 2025 - De@th row's oldest inmate executed for murdering estranged wife and sons, delivered scathing final words targeting Tennessee's governor.

Oscar Franklin Smith, 75, was k!lled by lethal injection on Thursday morning, May 22, for the 1989 murders of Judith Smith and her sons, Jason and Chad Burnett.

Smith has always maintained his innocence in the grisly murders, and as he lay strapped to a gurney at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville he claimed the justice system was broken.

He noted that Gov. Bill Lee, who made a last-minute decision to stop Smith's execution in 2022 'has the last word' on allowing executions to continue.

'He's a damned fool if he doesn't realize we've got [innocent] men at Riverbend waiting to die,' the 75-year-old said in his three-minute final statement, according to the Nashville Banner.

'I'm not the first, and I won't be the last,' he said.

Smith could later be heard insisting, 'I didn't kill her' in the moments before visible signs of respiration stopped and he was pronounced dead at 10.47am.

Witnesses to the execution said they saw no obvious sign that the injection had begun after his final statement, but noted that Smith's speech became labored as he spoke with his spiritual adviser, who was allowed into the execution chamber under an agreement with state officials.

She was seen performing a final liturgy, reading from scripture and at one point singing I'll Fly Away.

Smith was convicted of fatally stabbing and sh0oting Judith Smith, her 13-year-old son Jason Burnett, and 16-year-old son Chad Burnett at their Nashville home shortly before midnight on October 1, 1989. 

Prosecutors argued that the couple were going through a contentious divorce and were fighting over custody of their three-year-old twins.

When the murders occurred, Smith was also facing domestic violence charges for allegedly assaulting his wife.

At his trial, two of Smith's co-workers testified that he had solicited them to kill Judith, noting that he had a history of threats and violence against her and her boys.

He even told one of his co-workers that he threatened to kill the boys because he said Judith treated them better than the twin children they shared, according to the Tennessean.

Smith had also taken out insurance policies on all three victims, prosecutors noted.

They also played the audio of the 911 call, in which they said Chad could be heard screaming, 'Frank, no.' Franklin is Smith's middle name, and one that prosecutors said he used regularly.

But Smith has long denied the murders and allegations of domestic violence and death threats, claiming he, his wife and the boys had spent the day together and later that night, he said he left Judy's house with their twins, whom he dropped off at his mother's house while he left for a job in Kentucky. 

His claims, however, were refuted by the fact that his car was seen at the victim's home the night of the crime. 

A handprint found at the scene also matched Smith's left hand including his two missing fingers

Smith was ultimately sentenced to death by a Davidson County jury in July 1990, and faced multiple execution dates that were rescheduled due to the COVID pandemic and moratoriums to review the state's lethal injection process, WPLN reports. 

It had turned out that the lethal drugs the state was using for executions were not properly tested for endotoxins - a step in its own required protocol, and Gov. Lee granted Smith a temporary reprieve.

The corrections department, though, has since issued new guidelines for executions - this time involving just one drug, pentobarbital.

Those guidelines are now the subject of a lawsuit, which claims the state was likely using pentobarbital purchased on the 'gray market' because even though it is legal, major manufacturers have banned its use in executions.

That could increase the chance of torturous effects coming from a lethal dose, attorneys representing death row inmates argued, pointing to studies showing people executed with the drug experienced pulmonary edema - a form of lung damage, where fluid buildup creates a drowning sensation.

'It can create a sense of suffocating or drowning that has been likened by experts to the sensation intentionally induced by the practice of waterboarding, an unambiguous form of outright torture,' the lawsuit claims, according to the Nashville Banner.