OMAHA – Nikko Jenkins, the Omaha spree killer who murdered four people in August 2013, has demanded to be executed.
Jenkins stated in a handwritten document filed with Douglas County District Court this week, “I no longer desire to appeal the death sentence imposed upon me.” He demands an execution date and that Nebraska Corrections put him to death.
In 2013, Jenkins pleaded with anyone who would listen, from prosecutors to judges, to keep him in prison. He served ten years in prison for carjacking as a teenager, and he claims corrections staff never addressed his mental health. He feared he would kill if he was released.
He did—four times in ten days—and several of his family members went to prison for assisting him.
Jenkins has asked the courts to halt the appeals and execute him, but attorneys tell First Alert 6, it is not that simple. For starters, because this is a death penalty case, the system has built-in safeguards to ensure that all appeals are exhausted. In fact, his attorneys asked a local judge last fall to set aside $50,000 to study his mental health dating back to childhood.
Furthermore, Nebraska currently lacks the capacity to carry out a death sentence. While the state’s method is lethal injection, corrections has difficulty obtaining the drugs needed to carry it out. Drug manufacturers of the assigned cocktail do not want their products associated with executions.
There are 11 men on death row in Nebraska. The oldest case dates back to 1993 and involves John Lotter. The majority of these came before Jenkins’ case, and the corrections department usually starts with the longest-serving employees.
Nebraska’s last execution occurred in 2018.
