Will Benton County murderer from 2007 be the first executed in Arkansas by controversial nitrogen hypoxia gas?

randon Eugene Lacy, convicted in 2009 for the murder of Randall Walker in Benton County, is scheduled for execution on April 29, 2025. Now 47, Lacy has been on death row for 16 years following his guilty verdict for capital murder and aggravated robbery.

His case has drawn attention as Arkansas prepares to use nitrogen gas, a newly approved execution method, for the first time since 2017.

The crime took place on August 30, 2007, at Walker’s mobile home on Beaver Hollow Road in Garfield. Walker, 47, was beaten with a fireplace poker, stabbed multiple times, and had his throat cut. Lacy set the trailer on fire after robbing Walker and left the scene

The body was found later that day by Lacy’s estranged wife, Melissa, and her boyfriend, David Weaver, who called 911. Firefighters and the Benton County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it was a homicide.

Lacy was arrested on September 2, 2007, after calling Rogers police from the Hi-D-Ho Restaurant, admitting to a murder while intoxicated. Taken into custody for public intoxication, he confessed the next day to Investigator Greg Hines after sobering up and being read his rights.

He admitted to hitting Walker with the poker, forcing him to open a safe, and participating in the killing. On May 13, 2009, a Benton County jury convicted him after a two-week trial, sentencing him to death for the murder and life without parole for the robbery.

Arkansas has a long history with the death penalty, executing over 200 people since 1836. The state switched to lethal injection in 1983 and last carried out executions in 2017, when four men were put to death in eight days.

Since then, a shortage of lethal injection drugs halted executions until Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in March 2025 allowing nitrogen hypoxia, where the inmate breathes pure nitrogen until death. Lacy’s execution could be the first using this method in Arkansas, following its use in Alabama in 2024.

Lacy’s attorney, Rachel Harper, is seeking clemency, arguing that his confession was unreliable due to his intoxication and that unidentified DNA at the scene suggests another person may have been involved.

The petition is pending before Governor Sanders, with a decision expected by April 15. Benton County Prosecutor Nathan Smith, who prosecuted the case, stands by the conviction, citing Lacy’s fingerprints on the poker and his detailed confession as solid evidence.

Public reaction in Benton County is mixed. Some residents support the execution, recalling the crime’s impact in 2007, while others oppose it, citing ethical concerns about the death penalty and the new method. Benton County has rarely sent inmates to death row; Lacy’s case follows Don Davis’s 1992 conviction, executed in 2017.

If the execution proceeds, it will take place at the Cummins Unit. Lacy’s fate depends on the clemency outcome and any last-minute legal challenges. His case marks Arkansas’s latest step in a decades-long history of capital punishment.