GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- The state’s only federal death-row inmate, Marvin Gabrion, could be affected by an order from U.S. Atttorney General William Barr to restart federal executions.

Gabrion, 65, is awaiting the death penalty in the 1997 killing of Rachel Timmerman, 19.

He is also suspected of killing her 11-month-old daughter, Shannon, whose body was never found, and three others.

He is in federal prison because Timmerman’s death happened at Oxford Lake in the Manistee National Forest, federal land. Prosecutors said she was alive when she was chained to concrete blocks and thrown form a boat into the lake.

According to a Thursday, July 25 announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons to conduct the executions of five death-row inmates convicted in murders of children or the elderly. They are scheduled to happen in December and January.

The inmates on the initial list, and the states where they were convicted, are as follows:

-- Daniel Lewis Lee in Arkansas

-- Lezmond Mitchell in Arizona

-- Westly Ira Purkey in Missouri

-- Alfred Bourgeiois in Texas

-- Dustin Lee Honken in Iowa

Barr’s order clears the way for the first federal executions in nearly two decades.

According to the Justice Department, additional executions will be scheduled at a later date. Officials did not provide any other inmate names.

Gabrion was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to death by a jury.

Michigan law does not allow the death penalty but Gabrion was tried under federal law after the prosecution showed the killing happened on federal land.

Gabrion has exhausted direct appeals in the murder case, but in December filed notice for a different type of appeal. He planned to contest a federal judge’s ruling rejecting his multiple, long-running allegations of mistreatment by the justice system.