Arizona prisoner won’t be executed in gas chamber

(KYMA, KECY/ AP News) - Just weeks after Clarence Dixon became the first prisoner to be executed in Arizona in nearly eight years, another prisoner sits on death row, next in line.

Frank Atwood is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in less than three weeks for killing an 8-year-old girl.

Atwood declined to pick a method of execution, marking the second condemned man to decline lethal gas since the state refurbished its gas chamber — a method of execution that hasn’t been used in the United States in more than 20 years.

This meaning Atwood will be put to death by lethal injection - Arizona’s default execution method when condemned prisoners refuse to make a selection.

Authorities have said Atwood kidnapped 8-year-old Vicki Hoskinson in 1984 whose remains were discovered in the desert northwest of Tucson nearly seven months after her disappearance.

Experts could not determine the cause of death from the bones that were found.