Lynda Lyon Block Executed — The Last Woman Put to Death in Alabama’s Electric Chair

Told me that the state of Alabama wants to put me to death in the most horrible manner. Me, a woman, a mother, a businesswoman. And the only thing that I did was protect my husband.  May 10th, 2002, 12:01 in the morning, Atmore, Alabama. Inside Hullman Correctional Facility, a woman sits in a bright yellow chair.

 Her head is shaved clean. Her wrists are strapped down tight. The room is dead quiet. An officer leans forward and asks her if she has any final words. She looks straight ahead. One word, no. Her name is Linda Lion Block. And in just minutes, she will make history. Not for the life she lived, but for the death she is about to face.

 That yellow chair had already taken 177 lives before hers. Tonight, it would take one more, and after tonight, it would never be used again. But before that current was ever switched on, a police sergeant had to die in a Walmart parking lot. And the story of how Linda ended up in that chair will leave you questioning everything.

 A routine errand, a parking lot, a bullet no one saw coming. Welcome back to our channel. This channel tells the full story. Not just the verdict, not just the execution, every single detail. If you are new here, hit subscribe right now so you never miss one. Let’s go back to where this all began. His name was Sergeant Roger Lamar Mley Jr.

 He worked for the Opaikica Police Department in Opaikica, Alabama. He was not the kind of officer who chased headlines. He did not seek attention or recognition. He started at the bottom, a regular patrol officer, and he worked his way up, one honest day at a time, until he earned the rank of supply sergeant. His job was simple. Keep the department stocked.

 keep things running, show up and do the work nobody else noticed. And that is exactly what he did every single day. His colleagues knew him as the kind of man you could count on. Calm under pressure, trusted by everyone around him, the kind of person who gave without thinking twice. On the morning of October 4th, 1993, a younger officer needed a bulletproof vest.

 Roger gave his away without hesitation. He walked out of that station completely unprotected. He was not heading to a dangerous call. He was going to Walmart to pick up supplies for the department. A routine errand, nothing more. At home, his wife Wanita and their four children were waiting for him. He never came back.

 In that Walmart parking lot, a woman flagged him down. She had just watched a young boy inside a red Ford Mustang mouth. Two words through the glass. Help me. Roger did not hesitate. He walks straight toward that car. What happens next is impossible to believe. To understand what happened in that parking lot, you have to understand who Linda Cheryl Lion Block really was and how far she had fallen from the woman she used to be.

Linda was born on February 8th, 1948 in Orlando, Florida. For most of her adult life, she looked like a model citizen. She [clears throat] lived in Key West and threw herself into community work. She served as secretary of the local humane society and personally investigated animal abuse cases. She was elected president of the friends of the library not once but twice.

 She volunteered on a mayoral campaign. She was a cub scout mother. She edited a magazine. She loved classical music and opera. She preferred books over television and volunteering over socializing. On paper, she was exactly the kind of person every community wants more of. But behind that image, something had been building for years.

Linda later claimed that her mother was physically and emotionally abusive toward her as a child. She said the relationship never healed. That early distrust of authority, of systems, of institutions never left her. In 1983, at 35 years old, she married Carl Block, a military veteran in his late 70s who had lost his only son in a car accident.

Together they had one son, but the marriage collapsed and they divorced in December 1991. She kept the last name Block. By then, she had already connected with George Sibi Jr., a man who shared her growing belief that the United States government was an illegitimate force. Together, they renounced their citizenship.

 They destroyed their driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards. They published a political magazine called Liberatus, aimed at tearing down the very government Linda had once volunteered to serve. They called themselves sovereign citizens, people who believed no federal or state law applied to them.

 Court records confirm that by 1992, both were armed and both believed no court in the land had any power over them whatsoever. Linda and George were not simply a couple. They were a unit, ideologically locked together. Each one pushed the other further. Each one made the other bolder. And the further they went, the more dangerous they became.

 Then in August 1992, their beliefs turned violent for the first time. Linda and George forced their way into the Orlando apartment of Carl Block. Linda’s elderly ex-husband, then approximately 79 years old. They grabbed him. They tied him to a chair. They gagged him so he could not call for help. Their demand was simple.

 stopped contesting ownership of their house in the ongoing legal dispute. Before they left, Linda stabbed him once in the chest. They walked out and left him there, bound, bleeding, alone. Neighbors eventually realized something was wrong. They found Carl and called for help. He survived.

 Both Linda and George were arrested and charged with aggravated battery on a person over 65 years of age. They pleaded no contest. A sentencing hearing was scheduled. They never showed up. Instead, they barricaded themselves inside George’s home in Pine Hills, Florida, surrounded by weapons and ammunition. They faxed statements to local news stations declaring they would rather die than live as slaves.

 They warned that they expected police to storm the property. Law enforcement kept their distance. No raid ever came. Undercover of night, Linda and George disappeared. Into the Mustang went three handguns, two semi-automatic rifles, and an M14 rifle. Also in that car, Linda’s 9-year-old son. A bumper sticker on the back of the car read, “A woman is not a woman without a gun.

 They were now fugitives, armed, radicalized, and heading straight toward the worst decision of their lives.” After slipping out of Florida undetected, Linda and George made their first stop in Georgia. Staying briefly with associates before moving on to Mobile, Alabama. Court records confirm they had no fixed address. They were living out of the Red Mustang, moving constantly, staying nowhere long enough to be found, but they were not laying low.

 They continued operating entirely according to their sovereign citizen beliefs. They did not recognize Alabama’s authority. They did not recognize any state’s authority. In their minds, no government, local, state, or federal, had any power over them at all. The weapons in that car were not there by accident. Three handguns, two semi-automatic rifles, one M14 rifle.

 Court records make clear this was a deliberate and considered arsenal. This was not a frightened couple on the run. This was an armed ideological unit that had already demonstrated a willingness to use violence. Throughout all of it, Linda’s 9-year-old son was with them. Witness accounts and court records later confirmed the boy showed visible signs of distress on more than one occasion during their time on the road.

 By October 1993, they had been fugitives for months. No income, no permanent shelter, and a certainty stated repeatedly and on record that they would never comply with any law enforcement officer under any circumstances. They were not planning a murder, but they had already made the decision that would lead to one. We are about halfway through this story, and it is about to get a lot worse before it gets anywhere near justice.

 If you have not already, hit that subscribe button right now so you catch every episode we drop. Now, October 4th, 1993, a Walmart parking lot in Opaikica, Alabama. October 4th, 1993 started like any other working day for Sergeant Roger Mley. He arrived at the Opaikica Police Department for his shift. Before heading out, a younger officer mentioned needing a bulletproof vest.

 Roger took his off and handed it over. No hesitation, no second thought. He left the station that morning with nothing protecting his chest. His assignment was straightforward. Drive to the Walmart on the outskirts of Opelikica and pick up supplies for the department. A task so routine it barely warranted a second thought.

 Meanwhile, across town, Linda and George pulled the red Mustang into that same Walmart parking lot. They were not there to shop. They needed to use the pay phone outside the store entrance. After weeks of moving from place to place, this was meant to be a five-minute stop. Nothing more. George stayed in the car with Linda’s 9-year-old son.

 Linda walked to the pay phone and picked up the receiver. That is when everything changed. A woman in the parking lot noticed the boy sitting in the Mustang. Something about him caught her attention. She later testified that she watched him mouth two words toward her through the glass. Help me. She did not ignore it. She waited until she spotted a police officer pulling into the lot and immediately flagged him down.

 That officer was Sergeant Roger Mley. Roger walked directly toward the Mustang. He introduced himself calmly and asked George for his driver’s license. George refused. He told Roger he did not recognize the authority of the state. He did not need a license. He began reciting sovereign citizen doctrine, the same beliefs he and Linda had built their entire fugitive life around.

 Roger remained calm. As a trained precaution, he placed his hand on his service weapon. He did not draw it. George saw the hand move. He reached for a semi-automatic pistol and opened fire. Roger spun away and ran toward his patrol car, returning fire and striking George. He grabbed his radio and called out, “Officer in trouble.

 Corners shot by the parking lot.” The parking lot exploded into chaos. Witnesses screamed. People threw themselves behind cars. Others sprinted back into the store. At the pay phone, Linda heard the shots. She reached into her purse and pulled out a handgun. Then she ran, not away from the gunfire, but directly toward it.

 Court records and eyewitness testimony confirm what happened next. As she approached the Mustang, Linda dropped into a crouch, raised her weapon, and fired toward Roger, who was crouched behind his patrol car with his full attention on George. Roger turned in her direction. She fired again. The bullet hit him square in the chest. Without his bulletproof vest, he had no protection. Nothing to slow it down.

Nothing to save him. Roger Lamar Mley Jr. collapsed in that parking lot. He was rushed to East Alabama Medical Center. Doctors worked to save him. They could not. He was 38 years old. He had a wife named Wanita. He had four children at home. He had given his vest away that morning because someone else needed it more.

 And the woman who fired that final shot, she had a very specific explanation for what she did. And it was one a jury would ultimately reject. Word by word. Linda and George did not stop. They did not pull over. They did not surrender. The moment Roger fell, they jumped back into the red Mustang and floored it. Police pursuit began within minutes.

 Officers radioed that the vehicle was traveling at speeds between 80 and 90 mph through Opaikica, but the chase did not last long. They were caught. Officers pulled them over and took both into custody. George was wounded. Roger’s return fire had found its mark. Linda’s 9-year-old son was removed from the vehicle and placed immediately into protective custody.

Neither Linda nor George expressed a single word of remorse. Neither cooperated with officers. They were processed and formally arrested. On the other side of Opelica, Wanita Mley received the phone call that no officer’s spouse is ever truly ready for. Her husband had left for a routine errand that afternoon.

 He was not coming home. Four children would grow up without their father. Roger’s mother, Anne Mley, and his sister, Betty Anne Foes, received the same devastating news that day. They would carry that grief for the next 12 years until the night they finally watched justice close the chapter for good. This was not a mystery.

 The shooting happened in broad daylight in a public parking lot in front of multiple civilian witnesses who saw everything unfold from just a few feet away. Investigators did not need to search for suspects. Both Linda and George were already in custody before the sun went down on October 4th, 1993. The real challenge was different and far more unusual.

 Prosecutors had to build a case that would hold up in court against two defendants who did not believe the court had any right to exist. Linda and George were not going to cooperate with defense attorneys. They were not going to negotiate a plea. They were going to walk into that courtroom and challenge its very authority to try them.

 That [clears throat] made preparation critical. Investigators interviewed every witness from the parking lot. Their accounts were consistent and damning. George fired first. Linda moved deliberately toward Roger while he was occupied behind his patrol car. She raised her weapon and fired. The firearm recovered from Linda was confirmed to have been discharged.

 However, one forensic question remained unanswered. Whose bullet had actually delivered the fatal wound? Court records confirmed that determination could not be made with certainty. As it turned out, it would not need to be. The case against Linda and George was not built on a single piece of evidence. It was built on a pattern, and that pattern was impossible to ignore.

 Prosecutors made one thing absolutely clear from the start. These were not two peaceful people who had simply snapped under pressure. Court records showed they had already been charged with aggravated battery in Florida for the violent assault on Carl Block, tying an elderly 79year-old man to a chair and stabbing him.

 They had pleaded no contest, skipped their sentencing hearing, and fled the state as wanted fugitives. They were already running from the law before they ever set foot in that Walmart parking lot. The arsenal recovered from the Mustang reinforced everything. Three handguns, two semi-automatic rifles, one M14 rifle.

 Court records confirmed this was not the load out of a couple simply living off the grid. This was deliberate preparation for violent confrontation. Sworn statements from every witness in that parking lot aligned on the key facts. George fired first. Linda advanced. Both discharged their weapons at Sergeant Roger Mley.

 The testimony of the woman who had flagged Roger down proved especially powerful. She had been close enough to see the boy’s lips move through the glass and close enough to watch Roger die. At trial, Linda Lion Block would speak in her own defense. And what she said inside that courtroom was something no one who was there would ever forget.

 When Linda and George walked into that Alabama courtroom, they did not come to defend themselves. They came to reject the entire proceeding. From the very first day, both made their position known. They refused the attorneys appointed to represent them. They told the court plainly and without hesitation that they did not recognize its authority to try them.

 Their argument was extraordinary. They claimed that Alabama had never been legally readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. Therefore, in their view, the state itself was operating outside the bounds of the Constitution and had no lawful jurisdiction over them. They also argued that the shooting was self-defense.

Roger had placed his hand on his service weapon during the confrontation. To Linda and George, that gesture was an act of aggression against sovereign individuals who had every right to protect themselves. Linda stated it plainly. The only thing that I did was protect my husband. The jury heard something entirely different.

 Witness after witness took the oath and told the same story. George fired first without any provocation. Roger retreated, returned fire, and called for backup. Linda ran toward the scene, dropped into a deliberate firing position and shot at Roger while his back was still partially turned toward her.

 Court records confirm that while ballistics could not establish with certainty whose bullet caused Roger’s death, Alabama law required no such determination. Both Linda and George had actively participated in the killing of a police officer. Under Alabama law, that made both equally liable for capital murder. The jury convicted them on both counts.

Both received death sentences. Both filed appeals arguing the same jurisdictional claims the court had already rejected. Those appeals went nowhere. On December 21st, 1994, Linda Cheryl Lion Block was delivered to Julia Tutweiler Prison for Women in Wumpa, Alabama. She had 7 years ahead of her on death row.

 Not one of those years would change her mind about anything. Linda Lion Block spent 7 years on death row at Julia Tutweiler Prison for Women in Watumpa, Alabama. She did not file a single appeal. Her reason was consistent with everything she had believed for years. The courts had no authority over her. Filing an appeal would mean submitting to a system she considered completely illegitimate.

 She refused to give it that satisfaction. She gave interviews from her cell. She remained composed and clear-headed. She never once stepped back from the ideology that had led her to that prison in the first place. In her own words, during those years, she said, “No, I don’t deserve to die, and I’m going to fight kicking and screaming all the way to the electric chair.” She didn’t.

 In 2002, Alabama passed new legislation making lethal injection the primary method of execution. Effective July 1st, 2002. Under the new law, condemned inmates would be allowed to choose between lethal injection and electrocution. Linda’s execution was scheduled for May 10th, 2002, just weeks before that law took effect. She was given no choice.

People who knew her said it likely would not have mattered. Selecting a method of execution would have meant engaging with the very system she had spent a decade refusing to acknowledge. On May 9th, 2002, Linda spent her final hours quietly. She declined a special last meal. She declined to write a final statement.

 She spent several hours with three close friends, then met with her spiritual adviser, Sally Misho, the only witness she requested inside the execution chamber. She was transferred to Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. She wore a plain white prison uniform. Her head had been shaved to allow the electrodes to make proper contact.

 She was strapped into Alabama’s electric chair known as Yellow Mama, a chair that had been in use since 1927 and had already carried out 177 prior executions. The death warrant was read aloud. She was asked if she had any final words. She said no. At 12:01 in the morning on May 10th, 2002, the current was applied 250 volts for 20 seconds followed by 250 volts for 100 seconds.

 Witnesses watched her body go rigid, her fists clenched tight. Steam rose from the electrode contact points. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Michael Haley later described what he observed. Her stare was a very blank stare and emotionless stare. At 12:10 in the morning, Linda Cheryl Lion Block was pronounced dead. She was 54 years old.

 She was the first woman executed in Alabama in 45 years and the last person in the United States to be executed by electric chair without being offered an alternative method. Yellow Mama was retired shortly after. It had claimed its final life. 3 years later on August 4th, 2005, George Sibi Jr.

 was executed by lethal injection at the same facility. In the days before his death, he submitted a handwritten petition to the court claiming that it was Linda, not him, who had fired the shot that killed Sergeant Mley. Legally, it changed absolutely nothing. His final statement was short. Everyone who is doing this to me is guilty of murder.

 He then added, “My sister and my niece, I want to express my love and gratitude and gratitude to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” George Sibi Jr. was 62 years old. On August 4th, 2005, Wanita Mley sat behind the glass at Holman Correctional Facility and watched George Sibi Jr. take his last breath. She was not alone.

 Beside her sat Roger’s son, his two stepsons, his mother Anne Mley, and his sister Betty Anne Foes, the same family that had carried this grief for 12 long years. After it was over, Wanita spoke simply and quietly. I am ready to close this chapter of my life and go on. I believe justice was served. Anne Mley said even less, but her words carried everything.

 Thank the good Lord I had a son like mine and not like George Sibi. Roger Mley went to Walmart that afternoon to pick up supplies for his department. He stopped to help a child he had never met because that was who he was every single day without recognition, without armor. He was 38 years old. He should have gone home for dinner.

 Roger Mley deserved better than what that parking lot gave him. Tell me in the comments what moment in this story hit you hardest. And if this is your first time here, subscribe because every week we bring you the full story, the real story, start to finish. See you in the next