Idaho death row prisoner who murdered two women dies in custody after 21 years
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- Idaho death row prisoner Erick Hall, convicted of two rapes and murders, died in custody.
- Hall’s convictions stemmed from the killings of Lynn Henneman and Cheryl Ann Hanlon.
- Idaho is switching from lethal injection to a firing squad as its lead execution method.
An Idaho death row prisoner died in custody Monday evening of natural causes while at a local hospital, the state prison system announced Tuesday.
Erick Hall, 54, who was convicted of the rape and murder of two women in separate incidents in Boise, was sentenced to death in October 2004. He was handed a second death sentence in October 2007.
Hall was convicted at trial of the September 2000 rape and murder of Lynn Henneman, 38, a United Airlines flight attendant from New York who had an overnight layover in Boise. While staying at a hotel near the Boise River, Henneman went for an evening walk on the Boise Greenbelt when Hall attacked her.
Henneman never showed up to join her crew for the flight the next morning, and they reported her missing. Her body wasn’t found for more than two weeks when fishermen discovered a naked woman in the river 4 miles downstream from where she was last seen.
Three years later, while Boise police were investigating the death of another woman, they identified Hall as the suspect in Henneman’s death through a DNA match to a swab of her body.
‘’We are 100% certain we’ve got our man,” The Associated Press reported Boise Police Chief Don Pierce said at the time. “The results from the DNA testing are conclusive — Eric Virgil Hall is responsible for the brutal rape and murder of this woman who was simply enjoying the amenities of the Greenbelt.”
When they came across Hall, police were following up on the rape and murder of Cheryl Ann Hanlon, 43, of Boise, in the Boise Foothills. Hanlon was out hiking when Hall assaulted and strangled her to death. A person walking their dog found her partially clothed body on a hillside in Boise’s North End in March 2003.
After the jury deliberated for three days, Hall was convicted of Hanlon’s rape and murder in October 2007. Jurors again gave him the death penalty.
During more than 21 years of incarceration on death row at Idaho’s maximum security prison south of Boise, Hall repeatedly appealed his convictions in state and federal court. Represented by the nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho, he had three pending federal appeals when he died Monday night.
The legal nonprofit declined to comment Tuesday when reached by the Idaho Statesman. The Idaho Attorney General’s Office, which oversaw the state’s opposition to Hall’s appeals, also declined to comment.
The Ada County Prosecutor’s Office handled Hall’s murder trials.
“His murder cases involved heinous crimes that profoundly impacted the victims’ families and our community,” Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts said in a statement to the Statesman. “My thoughts remain with those families.”
Hall was one of nine prisoners on Idaho’s death row. Five others have sentences that predate his time there, including Robin Row, 68, the only woman in Idaho under a death sentence.
Idaho hasn’t put a prisoner to death in more than 13 years, last doing so in June 2012. The Idaho Department of Correction attempted to execute Thomas Creech, 75, in February 2024, but called off his lethal injection when members of the execution team couldn’t find a vein for nearly an hour that was suitable for an IV to deliver the lethal chemicals.
The state is now in the process of transitioning from lethal injection to a firing squad as its lead execution method. Renovations are underway in excess of $1 million to Idaho’s execution chamber at the maximum security prison as the firing squad takes effect in July.
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 2:04 PM.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Erick Hall was convicted at trial in the Lynn Henneman case.
