Coffee County Death Row Inmate Dies At State Prison

  • Friday, November 28, 2014
Gregory Thompson
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.

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