Fast food killer dies

Fast food killer dies, Death row inmate Paul Dennis Reid, who killed seven young people in a series of attacks at Tennessee fast-food restaurants in 1997, died on Friday in a Nashville hospital, a prison official said.

The cause of death will be determined by the State Medical Examiner's office, where the body was taken after Reid was pronounced dead, said Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction.

Reid was taken from Nashville's Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where he was awaiting execution, to the city's General Hospital at Meharry about two weeks ago, Carter said. Citing patient privacy laws, officials declined to discuss what he was being treated for.

Reid, 55, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the 1997 first-degree murders of seven fast-food workers in the Nashville region. He committed the attacks at a Captain D's restaurant, a McDonald's restaurant and a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store.

Reid, who was sometimes referred to as The Fast-Food Killer, had come to Nashville from Texas to pursue his dreams of being a country music singer. He had been paroled after serving seven years of a 20-year sentence on charges related to an armed robbery at a restaurant in Texas.