A Utah man who was spared execution this fall after developing dementia during his 37 years on death row died Wednesday of apparent natural causes, according to the state’s Department of Corrections. 

Ralph Leroy Menzies died at 1:45 p.m. local time at a hospital, the department said. His next of kin and the family of Maurine Hunsaker — the woman he was convicted of abducting and killing in 1986 — have been notified.

Menzies, 67, was set to die by firing squad in September, but the Utah Supreme Court blocked the impending execution in August after his attorneys argued his dementia had become too severe. A judge had scheduled a new competency hearing for mid-December to reevaluate his mental state.

The Utah Department of Corrections said Wednesday it would not be releasing further details on Menzies’ condition or medical information.

Menzies was convicted of abducting Hunsaker nearly 40 years ago from a convenience store where she worked near Salt Lake City and killing her. The body of the 26-year-old mother of three was discovered two days later. Menzies was sentenced to death in 1988. 

“Maurine Hunsaker was a cherished wife and mother whose life was stolen in an act of horrific violence by Ralph Menzies,” Utah Attorney General Derek Brown said Wednesday. “For decades, the state of Utah has pursued justice on her behalf. The path has been long and filled with pain, far more than any victim’s family should ever have to endure.”

Menzies would have been the seventh U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977. He selected the method when given a choice decades ago.

The Utah Supreme Court said this summer that the progression of his disease raised a significant question about his fitness to be executed at the time.

Menzies abducted Hunsaker from the convenience store on Feb. 23, 1986, while he was on parole. She later called her husband to say she was robbed and kidnapped, and that her abductor intended to release her. Two days later, a hiker found her body at a picnic area about 16 miles away in Big Cottonwood Canyon. She had been strangled and her throat was slashed.

Police say Hunsaker’s thumbprint was found in a car that Menzies was driving, and her purse was recovered in Menzies’ apartment. Menzies also had her wallet and other belongings when he was jailed on unrelated matters.

“We’re grateful that Ralph passed naturally and maintained his spiritedness and dignity until the end,” his legal team said in a statement.

Utah’s last execution was carried out by lethal injection just over a year ago. The state hasn’t used a firing squad since the 2010 execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner.

Earlier this month, South Carolina executed a man by a firing squad. Stephen Bryant, 44, was convicted in the 2004 killing of Willard “TJ” Tietjen. Investigators said Bryant shot Tietjen, burned his eyes with cigarettes and painted a message on the wall of Tietjen’s home with his blood. Prosecutors said he also shot and killed two other men he was giving rides to as they were relieving themselves on the side of the road during a few weeks that terrorized Sumter County in October 2004.

Bryant was the third man this year to die by South Carolina’s newest execution method. In March, the state carried out the nation’s first execution by firing squad in 15 years. South Carolina had a 13-year pause in executions when it couldn’t obtain lethal injection drugs.

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