Gregory Thompson
Death Row inmate Gregory Thompson has died at the age of 52.
He was pronounced dead at 5:40 p.m. on Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Thompson died of natural causes.
Thompson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the murder of a female newspaper reporter, 28-year-old Brenda Blanton Lane.
She was abducted from a Walmart by Thompson and a juvenile in Coffee County on New Year's Day 1985.
She was taken to a remote location outside Manchester, where the juvenile said Thompson stabbed her multiple times, then drove her car to Marietta, Ga.
Ms. Lane wrote for the Shelbyville Times-Gazette and, later, for United Methodist Communications in Nashville. She was named the “Outstanding Young Woman of Bedford County” in 1982.