CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — A 56-year-old inmate whose execution for the 1983 murders of two Reno girls was halted has died.
Nevada Department of Corrections officials said in a news release that Ricky Sechrest died Friday at a Carson City hospital after getting treated at a medical facility at Northern Nevada Correctional Center.
Authorities did not disclose why he was hospitalized.
An autopsy will be conducted.
Officials say Sechrest had been serving two death sentences since October 1983.
He was convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the killings of 9-year-old Carly Villa and 10-year-old Maggie Schindler.
Authorities say the girls were bludgeoned to death. Their bodies were later found in a shallow grave.
Sechrest was taken off death row in 2008 after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found prosecutors had misled jurors.
