Leroy Dean McGill, an Arizona prisoner convicted of a horrific murder involving gasoline and fire, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday. The 63-year-old’s death sentence marks the first of three executions planned across the United States this week.
McGill is set to receive a lethal injection of pentobarbital at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. He was found guilty of murder in the July 2002 death of Charles Perez.
Authorities stated that McGill doused Perez and his girlfriend, Nova Banta, with gasoline and then ignited a match as they sat on a sofa in a north Phoenix apartment on July 13, 2002.
The attack followed accusations by Perez and Banta that McGill had stolen a gun from the residence. At the time, McGill was reportedly using methamphetamine and had not slept for several days.
While Banta survived the brutal assault, Perez succumbed to his injuries.
At McGill’s Arizona trial, Banta testified that McGill had warned her and Perez not to speak ill of others before he set them ablaze.
Both victims fled the apartment, with another resident using a blanket to extinguish the flames on Banta, who suffered third-degree burns over three-quarters of her body. Perez later died in a hospital, enduring what prosecutors described as extreme pain.
Banta identified McGill as her attacker during the trial.
Jurors deliberated for less than an hour in October 2004 before convicting McGill of murder in Perez’s death. He was also found guilty of attempted murder for the attack on Banta, arson, and endangerment of others who escaped the apartment and a neighboring unit as the fire spread.
McGill’s legal team sought leniency, presenting evidence of childhood abuse, mental impairment, and psychological immaturity. However, the jury ultimately imposed the death sentence.
This spring, a last-ditch effort by McGill’s lawyers to secure resentencing was rejected by a lower-court judge, and the Arizona Supreme Court also denied a request to postpone the execution. McGill, who declined an interview request, waived his right to seek clemency.
Twelve people have been executed in the United States so far this year, with Tennessee and Florida each scheduled to carry out an execution on Thursday.
Arizona last applied the death penalty in 2025, executing Richard Kenneth Djerf for the 1993 killings of four members of a Phoenix family and Aaron Gunches for the 2002 fatal shooting of his girlfriend’s ex-husband.
The state conducted three executions in 2022, following a nearly eight-year hiatus caused by difficulties in obtaining execution drugs and criticism surrounding a botched 2014 execution.
In that instance, Joseph Wood was injected with 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours, leading to repeated snorting and gasping before his death.
The state’s current execution protocol, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, involves administering two syringes of the sedative pentobarbital. Arizona currently has 109 prisoners on death row.
