On 1 October, 1989, Robirds was shot in the neck before being stabbed several times. Her eldest, Chad, was found having been shot in the left eye, as well as the chest and torso. Jason, her youngest son, had been stabbed in the neck and abdomen.

Executions have resumed in Tennessee after a five-year hiatus. Death row inmate Oscar Franklin Smith, 75, was killed by lethal injection Thursday morning at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Killer, who spent over 30 years on Tennessee's death row, was executed for the murders of his estranged wife and her two sons.