The U.S. government plans to resume executions after a 16-year hiatus, picking five killers of children to be the first to die, VOA news reports.
The five men — four white and one black — range in age from 37 to 67. They are being held in a high-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where they will be executed.
Here is a look at the five men and their crimes:
Daniel Lee, 46, is scheduled for execution Dec. 9.
Lee, a white supremacist, was convicted in 1999 for killing an Arkansas gun dealer, along with his wife and 8-year-old daughter.
Lezmond Mitchell, 37, is scheduled for execution Dec. 11.
Mitchell was convicted in 2003 for killing a 63-year-old grandmother and her 9-year-old granddaughter in Arizona. After stabbing the grandmother to death, Mitchell and his accomplice forced the child to sit next to the body for a more than 50-kilometer drive, before fatally slashing her throat.
Wesley Purkey, 67, is scheduled for execution Dec. 13.
Purkey was found guilty in 2003 for raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering and burning her body in Missouri. Months before that murder, Purkey had used a hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio.
Alfred Bourgeois, 55, is scheduled for execution Jan. 13, 2020.
Bourgeois was found guilty by a Texas court in 2004 of the murder of his 2-year-old daughter. Witnesses, including family members, told the court that Bourgeois had repeatedly beaten the child before her death. An autopsy found the girl had sustained more than 300 injuries. Bourgeois is the only African American man on the list.
Dustin Honken, 51, is scheduled for execution Jan. 15, 2020.
Honken was found guilty in 2004 for the shooting deaths of five people in Iowa, including two men, a single mother and her daughters, ages 6 and 10. The Justice Department has said the two men were drug dealers who planned to testify against Honken, a methamphetamine dealer.