At 77 years old, Nixon, who was a World War II veteran, was the oldest person executed since 1976 and, according to the Espy Files compiled by M. Watt Espy, the oldest person executed in the United States since Joe Lee in Virginia at the age of 83 on April 21, 1916.
[3] Nixon was convicted by a jury of capital murder after a three-day trial and sentenced to death on March 26, 1986.
The jury found that the aggravating circumstances of the murder being for hire were especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel, and that Nixon had previously been convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence to a person.
He had volunteered to serve in the United States Navy during World War II and received an honorable discharge.
A psychiatrist named Gerald O'Brien diagnosed Nixon with a severe passive-aggressive personality disorder.
In a federal court, after an appeal by Nixon, the state prosecutors admitted that it could not ethically use the statutory rape charge as evidence of a prior violent felony, but the court held that error was harmless, as the jury found two other aggravating circumstances in the penalty phase.
[3] Nixon's lawyers argued that since he was already 77, he would be little danger to society and should be able to live out the rest of his days in prison, where he had been for the last 19 years.
Nixon was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. Central Standard Time Zone on December 14, 2005, after his execution by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
I know within my heart, and it hurts to acknowledge, that it was a son of mine and a Spanish friend and another man from Jackson.