LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A man who had been on Nebraska’s death row since 2003 died Saturday, reducing the total number of condemned inmates in the state to 11, prison officials said Monday.
Arthur Gales, 55, was sentenced to death for the 2001 slayings of two children, 13-year-old Latara Chandler and 7-year-old Tramar Chandler, in Omaha. He received a separate 50-year sentence for the attempted murder of their mother, who was severely beaten.
The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said the cause of Gales’ death wasn’t yet known, but he had been undergoing treatment for an unspecified medical condition. A grand jury will investigate, which happens anytime a prison inmate dies in custody.
None of the 11 men on death row in Nebraska are scheduled for an execution and prison officials have acknowledged they don’t have any of the lethal injection drugs required to carry one out.
