Who was Aaron Gunches? What to know about the man Arizona executed

On March 19, Arizona executed death row prisoner Aaron Gunches, the first state execution in more than two years. Gunches was 53.

Here’s what to know about Gunches, and the controversies surrounding his execution.

Who was Aaron Gunches?

In 2004, Gunches pleaded guilty to kidnapping and first-degree murder for the 2002 killing of Ted Price, the ex-husband of Gunches’ then-girlfriend, Katherine Lecher.

According to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, Gunches and Jennifer Garcia were staying with Lecher when Price came over. Gunches grew angry at Price and told Garcia to give them a ride, supposedly to take Price to catch a bus home. Instead, they drove into the desert.

Once in the desert, Gunches shot Price three times in the chest and once in the back of the head. Garcia then drove Gunches and Price's body back, stopping to dump the body along the way. Price’s body was later found in the desert on the Salt River Reservation near Mesa and the Beeline Highway. Garcia wound up testifying against Gunches in court proceedings and pled to a kidnapping charge in 2005.

In January 2003, Arizona Department of Public Safety Officer Robert Flannery pulled Gunches over near the Arizona-California border because his car had a broken tail light. Gunches shot Flannery twice, hitting Flannery’s bullet-proof vest and wristwatch and causing only minor injuries. Gunches fled the scene and a 50-officer manhunt ensued. He was arrested a day later in Wenden, an unincorporated community in La Paz County.

The bullet casings found near Price’s body matched the gun Gunches used to shoot Flannery. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to death in 2008 and then again in 2013 after the Arizona Supreme Court found an error in the first sentencing proceeding.

Why was Aaron Gunches’ execution controversial?

Basically, because he was next in line to die when the state started grappling with its execution methods.

In May 2022, eight years after the botched death of Joseph Wood, Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich resumed executions in Arizona. Brnovich oversaw three executions — of Murray Hooper, Clarence Dixon and Frank Atwood — in six months near the end of his term. The acts didn’t go smoothly as execution personnel struggled to insert IVs in two of the men.

When Democrat Kris Mayes succeeded Brnovich in office, she announced she wouldn’t be seeking any new death warrants until a review of executions in Arizona was completed. That same day, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs said she’d appoint a commissioner to review the death penalty, ultimately hiring retired federal judge David Duncan for the job. Though the state had received a death warrant for Gunches, Hobbs said it wouldn’t carry out his execution until the review was completed.

That irked Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a Republican. She asked the court to order Hobbs to kill Gunches, but the court declined. Mitchell then sought a death warrant for Gunches directly, despite having no constitutional authority to do so. Mitchell and Mayes sparred over the issue in court and in letters to each other’s offices.

That battle largely became moot when Hobbs fired Duncan in late November of this year, claiming he had overstepped his mandate. Though Duncan’s review was not yet complete, Hobbs determined that an internal review by the state prison system was good enough, ending Arizona’s moratorium on capital punishment.

Duncan’s firing created controversy. A draft of Duncan’s report — for which he interviewed roughly 40 to 50 people and combed through tens of thousands of records — outlined numerous problems the state had with lethal injections. It suggested that the only execution method that would be quicker and less prone to screw-ups would be a firing squad, which is barred by state law.

That put Gunches back on the execution calendar, though advocacy groups are calling to Hobbs to finish and release the report.

When was Aaron Gunches executed?

Gunches was killed by lethal injection on March 19 at 10 a.m. at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Florence. The Arizona Supreme Court granted a death warrant for Gunches on Feb. 11.

Karen Price, Ted Price’s sister, was present to witness the execution.

Representing himself, Gunches originally petitioned the Arizona Supreme Court to get it over with and schedule his execution for Feb. 14. On Jan. 8, the court rejected that request, opting to let the usual process play out.

It was not the first time Gunches tried to speed things up. During Brnovich’s term, Gunches filed a motion requesting a death warrant, which Brnovich supported. But before the state Supreme Court issued the warrant to set an execution date, Gunches changed his mind. He said the state’s recent executions were “car­ried out in a man­ner that amounts to tor­ture” and rescinded his request.

How was Aaron Gunches executed?

Gunches died by lethal injection.

Executions are carried out at the central unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence by masked, unidentified executioners. Gunches was transported to the Florence facility from the Rincon Unit at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Tucson, where death row is located.

Arizona voters approved the use of lethal injection for executions in 1992. But after Wood’s botched execution in 2014, the state changed its execution drug combination and tried to obtain sodium pentothal and sodium pentobarbital. If it couldn’t get its hands on these drugs, the state would use a three-drug cocktail that includes midazolam and potassium chloride, according to Duncan’s report.

Arizona ran into problems getting the lethal injection drugs in 2015. It attempted to illegally import the lethal injection drug — sodium thiopental — from India, but the drugs were confiscated at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Duncan’s report also outlined issues with “shipments of state-procured lethal drugs delivered to a private home in Phoenix with no apparent or verifiable chain of custody,” the storage of lethal drugs in unmarked jars and corrections officers using Wikipedia to search what dose of lethal drugs to administer.

Who would be next after Aaron Gunches?

Currently, 111 people are on death row in Arizona. Twenty-four of them have exhausted or waived all appeals.

The order in which death row inmates are executed is not specified by the state. Of those who have exhausted their appeals, Ronald Williams’ conviction is the oldest. In 1984, Williams was convicted of the shooting death of John Bunchek. Because he was sentenced prior to 1992, Williams will have a choice between lethal gas or injection as his execution method.

However, just because an inmate has been on death row the longest and is out of appeals doesn’t mean that inmate will be Arizona’s next execution. The majority of death row inmates without appeals were convicted in the 1990s — in fact, Gunches’ conviction is the most recent out of those inmates.