Frank Atwood execution: Murderer and son of Holocaust survivor set to face lethal injection

The Jewish son of a Holocaust survivor is set to face the death penalty early next month after declining to pick gas as his form of execution.

Frank Atwood, who was found guilty of murdering 8-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson in 1987 and has been on death row for over 35 years, will be executed on June 8th by lethal injection, becoming the second inmate to decline a gas chamber execution in the US state of Arizona after they reinstated gassing as a method of execution.

In 2021, Arizona controversially renovated its gas chamber and purchased chemicals to make hydrogen cyanide, the same gas that the Nazis used in the Holocaust. The news ignited outcry from Jewish communities and Holocaust charities, outraged that the gas was being used again to kill people.

At the time, Christoph Heubney of the International Auschwitz Committee told the New York Times: “For Auschwitz survivors, the world will finally come apart at the seams, if in any place on this earth the use of Zyklon B in the killing of human beings is considered again,”

According to Atwood's legal team, the convicted murderer's Jewish mother fled Austria from the Nazis in 1939 before making her way to the US. Atwood himself was baptised as Greek Orthodox while in prison.

Earlier this month, Atwood was given the choice of execution method and his legal team urged him to not select the gas chamber, telling the Guardian: "Cyanide is as bad as everybody thinks it is – there’s a reason the Nazis used it: it’s a horrific way to die.”

Atwood had until May 19th to make the decision between lethal injection and the gas chamber, but opted to not enter a preference, leaving him with the state's default method of lethal injection.

Atwood, who has been on death row since 1987, was found guilty of the murder of Vicki Lynne Hoskinson after forensic evidence linked pink paint found on his car to the bike that Hoskinson was seen riding on the day of her disappearance.

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Murdered school girl Vicki Lynn Hoskinson (Courtesy)

The 8-year-old's body was later found 20 miles away from where she was taken in such a state of decay that the cause of death could not be determined.

Earlier this year, the civil rights group The ACLU filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop Arizona's use of the gas chamber as a method of execution.

Arizona last executed someone with cyanide gas in 1999, when German-born Walter LaGrand took 18 minutes to die after an unsuccessful attempt by the German government to halt the execution by appealing to the International Court of Justice.

Jared Keenan, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Arizona said: "Arizona has acknowledged the horrors of cyanide gas as a method of execution and eliminated it in all but a narrow set of cases — it’s time the court eliminates the use of cyanide gas for execution once and for all. Regardless of where people stand on the matter of capital punishment, it’s clear that use of this barbaric practice is cruel and must be abolished.”

Arizona is the last remaining state in the US with a functioning gas chamber. Atwood is set to be executed by lethal injection on June 8th.

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Son of Holocaust survivor to face lethal injection after his lawyers urged him not to pick poison gas execution

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