Officials Confirm That One of Idaho’s 9 Death Row Inmates Has Died

One of the nine inmates on Idaho’s death row has passed away. According to The Idaho Department of Correction, the inmate passed away from natural causes at a local hospital on February 9. 

In 2007, Erick Hall became the first person to be sentenced to death row for not one, but two first-degree murders. Hall was already on death row for the brutal murder of Lynn Henneman when he was handed another death sentence for the 2003 murder of Cheryl Hanlon. 

READ MORE: Meet the Only Idaho Woman Currently Awaiting Her Fate on Death Row

Henneman was a New York-based flight attendant staying at the Riverside Hotel during a stopover in September 2000. Just like hundreds of other Riverside guests have done over the years, Henneman decided to take a walk on the Greenbelt after stopping for dinner at the TableRock Brew Pub and Grill. When she didn’t show up for her scheduled flight at the Boise Airport, her co-workers reported her missing. 

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Nearly two weeks later, a fisherman found a female body stuck under a log in the Boise River near the Lake Harbor apartments. The coroner confirmed the body was Henneman and that the autopsy showed that her death was a homicide. The Boise Police kept the cause of her death quiet for a while to not compromise the investigation, but the public would eventually learn that she was hit on the head, raped and strangled to death. 

Years went by without her family knowing who was responsible until DNA linked to the suspect in a 2003 rape and murder in the Boise foothills matched DNA collected during the Henneman investigation. 

That DNA belonged to Erick Hall who was sentenced to death for Henneman’s murder in October 2004. According to the Idaho Statesman, Hall’s 2004 trial marked the first time a jury decided if a convicted murderer should live or die. Before that case, it was up to a judge. 

Three years later, he’d receive a second death sentence for the raping and strangling Hanlon to death. 

After Hall’s death, eight inmates remain on death row including Chad Daybell. Death by firing squad is set to become the state’s primary form of execution this July. The execution chamber at IDOC is being retrofitted to accommodate a firing squad.