A convicted murderer was executed by lethal injection in Alabama Thursday night despite his victim’s family asking for his life to be spared. In August 1994, Joe Nathan James Jr. shot Faith Hall dead at her friend’s house. Faith’s daughter, Terryln Hall, was just six years old at the time. But in recent years, she says she’s forgiven James and, together with her sister and uncle, pleaded with Alabama’s Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to not execute him. Their request was denied. “Justice has been served,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said after the execution. “Joe James was put to death for the heinous act he committed nearly three decades ago: the cold-blooded murder of an innocent young mother, Faith Hall.” But Hall’s family called it a “tragic day” and said in a joint statement before the execution they had forgiven James for “his atrocities toward our family.”