An Arizona man who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder was scheduled to be executed Wednesday in the state’s first use of the death penalty in more than two years.
Aaron Brian Gunches, 53, was slated to be lethally injected with pentobarbital at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. Gunches fatally shot Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, in the desert outside the Phoenix suburb of Mesa in 2002.
Gunches is the second of four death row prisoners in the United States set to be executed this week. Louisiana executed a man on Tuesday and two more executions were scheduled in Florida and Oklahoma on Thursday. Gunches will be the first person executed in a state with a Democrat serving as governor since Virginia did so in 2017 when Terry McAuliffe was in charge.
Gunches’ execution had originally been scheduled for April 2023 but was called off after Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered a review of the state’s death penalty procedures. Late last year, Hobbs fired the retired judge she had appointed to conduct the review, and the state’s corrections department announced changes in the team that lethally injects death row prisoners.
Authorities say Price’s ex-wife struck Price in the face with a phone during an argument in late 2002 at her apartment, leaving him conscious but dazed. Price’s sister, Karen Price, said her brother had threatened to report his ex to child welfare authorities for doing drugs in front of their children.
Gunches arrived at the apartment later. He asked two other women who were there with his girlfriend to put Price in a car and drive him to a bus station. But when they realized they didn’t have enough money for a bus ticket, they instead drove into the desert, where Gunches shot Price, authorities said.