TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The U.S. government has put the first Black inmate to death since the Trump administration this year resumed federal executions after a nearly two-decade pause. Christopher Vialva, 40, was pronounced dead shortly before 7 p.m. EDT Thursday. He was convicted and sentenced to death in the slaying of a religious couple visiting Texas from Iowa when Vialva was 19. Vialva was the seventh federal execution since July and the second this week. Five of the first six were white, a move critics argue was a political calculation to avoid uproar. The sixth was Navajo. Vialva’s lawyer, Susan Otto, has said race played a role in landing her client on death row in the 1999 killings of Todd and Stacie Bagley, who were white.
(You can read the release provided by the Justice Dept. below.)
The Court Order to execute Mr. Christopher Andre Vialva has been fulfilled.
Pursuant to the sentence of the United States Court for the Western District of Texas, Christopher Andre Vialva has been executed by lethal injection.
He was pronounced deceased at 6:46 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time by the Vigo County Coroner.
Christopher Andre Vialva, 40, carjacked a vehicle, shot the occupants, and then burned the couple inside the vehicle, resulting in their death. On June 13, 2000, a jury in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas found Mr. Vialva guilty of Carjacking and First Degree Murder on a Government Reservation, Aiding and Abetting (two counts) for which he was sentenced to death. Mr. Vialva was also convicted by the jury for Conspiracy to Commit Murder, for which he was sentenced to life without the possibility of release.
USP Terre Haute is a High security facility with approximately 1,300 male inmates.
