To place an obituary, please include the information from the obituary checklist below in an email to obits@pioneerpress.com. There is no option to place them through our website. Feel free to contact our obituary desk at 651-228-5263 with any questions.
General Information:
Your full name,
Address (City, State, Zip Code),
Phone number,
And an alternate phone number (if any)
Obituary Specification:
Name of Deceased,
Obituary Text,
A photo in a JPEG or PDF file is preferable, TIF and other files are accepted, we will contact you if there are any issues with the photo.
Ad Run dates
There is a discount for running more than one day, but this must be scheduled on the first run date to apply.
If a photo is used, it must be used for both days for the discount to apply, contact us for more information.
Policies:
Verification of Death:
In order to publish obituaries a name and phone number of funeral home/cremation society is required. We must contact the funeral home/cremation society handling the arrangements during their business hours to verify the death. If the body of the deceased has been donated to the University of Minnesota Anatomy Bequest Program, or a similar program, their phone number is required for verification.
Please allow enough time to contact them especially during their limited weekend hours.
A death certificate is also acceptable for this purpose but only one of these two options are necessary.
Guestbook and Outside Websites:
We are not allowed to reference other media sources with a guestbook or an obituary placed elsewhere when placing an obituary in print and online. We may place a website for a funeral home or a family email for contact instead; contact us with any questions regarding this matter.
Obituary Process:
Once your submission is completed, we will fax or email a proof for review prior to publication in the newspaper. This proof includes price and days the notice is scheduled to appear.
Please review the proof carefully. We must be notified of errors or changes before the notice appears in the Pioneer Press based on each day’s deadlines.
After publication, we will not be responsible for errors that may occur after final proofing.
Online:
Changes to an online obituary can be handled through the obituary desk. Call us with further questions.
Payment Procedure:
Pre-payment is required for all obituary notices prior to publication by the deadline specified below in our deadline schedule. Please call 651-228-5263 with your payment information after you have received the proof and approved its contents.
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Rates:
The minimum charge is $162 for the first 10 lines.
Every line after the first 10 is $12.20.
If the ad is under 10 lines it will be charged the minimum rate of $162.
On a second run date, the lines are $8.20 per line, starting w/ the first line.
For example: if first run date was 20 lines the cost would be $164.
Each photo published is $125 per day.
For example: 2 photos in the paper on 2 days would be 4 photo charges at $500.
Deadlines:
Please follow deadline times to ensure your obituary is published on the day requested.
Hours
Deadline (no exceptions)
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MEMORIAM (NON-OBITUARY) REQUEST
Unlike an obituary, Memoriam submissions are remembrances of a loved one who has passed. The rates for a memoriam differ from obituaries.
Please call or email us for more memoriam information
Please call 651-228-5280 for more information.
HOURS: Monday – Friday 8:00AM – 5:00PM (CLOSED WEEKENDS and HOLIDAYS)
Please submit your memoriam ad to memoriams@pioneerpress.com or call 651-228-5280.
By R.J. RICO, Associated Press
Thirty-four men have died by court-ordered executions in the U.S. so far this year, and eight others are scheduled to be put to death by year’s end, including five in the next eight days.
The total for 2025 already far exceeds the number of executions carried out last year — 25 — and could be the highest since 2012, when 43 inmates were put to death, though still far below the modern peak of 98 executions in 1999.
The increase in executions is largely being driven by four states — Florida, Texas, Alabama and South Carolina — that have carried out 76% of this year’s court-ordered killings.
“This is not an uptick of executions nationally — this is really down to just a few states,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Chief among them is Florida, which has already carried out 13 executions after performing just one last year. The increase comes as President Donald Trump has urged governors to expand their use of the death penalty.
“Gov. DeSantis is scheduling all of these executions with complete autonomy and in complete secrecy,” Maher said.
DeSantis’ office has not responded to questions about why the governor is increasing the pace of executions now and whether Trump’s policies are playing a role.
Executions have been carried out this year in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
All but one of those states — Arizona — are run by Republican governors.
Here’s a look at the executions scheduled for the rest of the year, by state:
Indiana
Roy Lee Ward is set to die by lethal injection early Friday in the state’s third execution since resuming capital punishment last year.
Ward, 53, was convicted in the 2001 rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne.
Attorneys said Ward is remorseful and has exhausted his legal options after many court battles.
Missouri
Lance C. Shockley is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday.
Shockley, 48, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Dewayne Graham outside his home in Carter County in 2005.
Authorities said Graham was killed because he was investigating Shockley for involuntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident.
Florida
Samuel Lee Smithers is set to receive a lethal injection Tuesday evening.
Smithers, 72, was convicted of killing two women whose bodies were found in a rural pond in 1996. Authorities said he met his two victims — Christy Cowan and Denise Roach — on different dates at a Tampa motel to pay them for sex.
Norman Mearle Grim Jr., 65, is scheduled to be put to death on Oct. 28. He was convicted of raping and killing his neighbor Cynthia Campbell, whose body was found near the Pensacola Bay Bridge in 1998.
Smithers’ and Grim’s executions would be Florida’s 14th and 15th death sentences carried out in 2025, further extending the state’s record for executions in one year. Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the state’s previous record was eight in 2014.
Mississippi
Charles Ray Crawford is scheduled to be executed Wednesday for kidnapping and killing a college student in 1993.
Crawford, 59, was sentenced to death for fatally stabbing 20-year-old community college student Kristy Ray after abducting her from her parents’ home in northern Mississippi’s Tippah County. Crawford told officers he had blacked out and did not recall killing her.
Texas
Robert Roberson had been scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Oct. 16, but his closely watched case was paused Thursday by Texas’ top criminal court.
Roberson, 58, had been set to become the first person in the U.S. put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
Prosecutors at Roberson’s 2003 trial argued that he hit his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis and violently shook her, causing severe head trauma that led to her death.
But Roberson says he never abused the girl. A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers believe Roberson is innocent and have sought to get him a new trial.
Roberson’s lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died from complications related to pneumonia. They say his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence.
Arizona
Richard Kenneth Djerf is set to be executed Oct. 17 by lethal injection for killing four members of a family in their Phoenix home.
Djerf, 55, had pleaded guilty to four counts of murder in the 1993 killings of Albert Luna Sr., his wife Patricia, their 18-year-old daughter Rochelle and their 5-year-old son Damien.
Prosecutors say Djerf blamed another Luna family member for an earlier theft of home electronic items at his apartment and became obsessed with revenge.
Alabama
Anthony Todd Boyd is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on Oct. 23.
A judge sentenced Boyd to death for his role in the 1993 killing of Gregory Huguley in Talladega. Prosecutors said Boyd taped Huguley’s feet together before another man doused him with gasoline and set him on fire over a $200 cocaine debt.
Boyd has long maintained his innocence, saying he never participated in the killing.
Tennessee
Harold Nichols is scheduled to be executed Dec. 11.
Nichols, 64, was convicted of rape and first-degree felony murder in the 1988 death of 21-year-old Karen Pulley in Hamilton County. Authorities said he broke into Pulley’s home, raped her and hit her in the head several times with a board.
Nichols had been scheduled to be killed in August 2020, but the execution was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originally Published: October 9, 2025 at 3:04 PM CDT