Edmund George Zagorski was born on December 27, 1954, in Michigan, United States. He spent most of his upbringing in Tecumseh, a small city in Lenawee County. His childhood was marked by poverty and hardship. He suffered from an undiagnosed learning disability and struggled with a speech stutter, which contributed to his academic failure—he never completed high school.

Despite these setbacks, Zagorski later trained to become a ship captain, suggesting an attempt to create stability in his adult life. However, his social development and psychological wellbeing were described as troubled, and he often resorted to deception. This inclination toward deceit would become clear in the events that led to his death sentence.

By his late twenties, Zagorski had begun impersonating figures of authority or fantasy-like roles. Notably, in 1983, he posed as a Central American mercenary under the alias Jesse Lee Hardin, a name he used to manipulate his eventual victims into a fatal trap under the guise of a drug transaction. At the time of the murders, there was no evidence to suggest he held a regular job or had stable family ties.

On April 5, 1983, Edmund Zagorski met John Dale Dotson, a logger from Hickman County, Tennessee, at a trout farm. Introducing himself as Jesse Lee Hardin, Zagorski claimed to be a mercenary capable of supplying 100 pounds of marijuana for $25,000. Dotson was intrigued and discussed the proposal with his wife, Marsha, before arranging a future meeting for the exchange. The drug deal was scheduled for April 23, 1983, in a wooded hunting area in Robertson County, Tennessee.

Dotson reportedly had a sense of unease about the deal. Before leaving, he told his wife to call a friend if he didn’t return. Dotson brought a backpack, a change of clothes, and a revolver, and picked up his friend James “Jimmy” Porter, who owned a local tavern near the meeting spot.

Around 5:30 p.m., the trout farm owner overheard gunshots in the nearby woods. Gunfire was common due to local hunting, so the shots didn’t immediately arouse suspicion. However, Dotson and Porter never returned. It wasn’t until May 6, 1983, nearly two weeks later, that their decomposing bodies were found in the same woods. Both men had been shot and had their throats slit—a calculated and brutal double murder.

Ballistics testing connected a bullet casing at the scene to a firearm owned by Zagorski. Meanwhile, Zagorski was spotted days after the murders in Ohio, at a friend’s home. The friend noticed that he was in possession of Porter’s red Datsun truck, items belonging to the victims, and a large sum of money.

Zagorski was arrested on May 26, 1983, after engaging in a shootout with Ohio police, during which several officers were injured. He himself was shot and subdued before being taken into custody. On July 17, 1983, he confessed to the murders—but only under the condition that he could dictate the terms and timing of his own execution.

His trial was swift. Zagorski was convicted on March 2, 1984, and on March 27, he was sentenced to death by electrocution. The defense called no witnesses during sentencing, and the jury delivered its decision without hearing mitigating evidence.

Over the next three decades, Zagorski’s legal team filed numerous appeals and petitions. His case became entangled in debates over lethal injection protocols and execution methods. His scheduled executions in the 2000s were postponed multiple times due to litigation, judicial stays, and issues with Tennessee’s lethal injection drug supply.

In 2018, facing imminent execution by lethal injection, Zagorski opted for the electric chair, citing concerns over the pain caused by the state's three-drug protocol. On October 11, 2018, mere hours before his scheduled execution, he was granted a temporary reprieve to allow the Department of Correction time to prepare the electric chair. After a series of failed last-minute appeals, Tennessee reset his execution date to November 1, 2018.

On the evening of November 1, 2018, Zagorski ate a final meal of pickled pig tails and pickled ham hocks. At 7:26 p.m. CST, he was executed by electrocution at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, becoming the first person electrocuted in Tennessee in over a decade, and the first in the United States in nearly six years.