NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In 1988, Lisette Monroe was a young mother at 23 when she faced an unimaginable tragedy: the brutal loss of her cherished younger sister.

Karen Pulley fell victim to a heinous crime, as she was raped and murdered.

The perpetrator, Harold Nichols, was apprehended months later, connected to a series of rapes and burglaries in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After admitting to his crimes, Nichols now faces execution by the state of Tennessee, a moment Monroe has been anticipating for over 37 years.

In the backdrop of 1988, with Ronald Reagan as president and George Michael’s “Faith” topping the music charts, Monroe had just returned to the U.S. She had spent three years at an Air Force base in the Philippines with her husband.

During her time overseas, Monroe longed for the daily interactions with her sister that she had back in Chattanooga. Though they kept in touch through letters and occasional phone calls, it wasn’t the same. The sisters, who were inseparable throughout their childhood, maintained a close bond even as young adults at 20 and 17, spending Sundays together after church, often ending the day with dinner outings.

“Karen and I thought we were so grown up,” Monroe recalls. “I think it was something as simple as Wendy’s, but we would be sitting there and talking about our lives that week and how things had gone.”

Back in the U.S. after three years apart, Monroe was planning a trip to Tennessee to catch up on her sister’s life as a 20-year-old college student at Chattanooga State and introduce Pulley to her infant niece.

The longed-for visit would never happen.

“It’s like having a wound, and every time you turn around the band-aid is ripped off again,” she says of the years since the murder. Despite Nichols pleading guilty, there have been endless court battles over his death sentence — constant reminders to Monroe of the worst thing that ever happened.

“It’s almost like we’ve been through 37 years of hell, just over and over and over again,” she says.

Monroe knows people have a tendency to remember departed loved ones as better or more perfect than they were in life, but in Karen’s case, “She really was an angel,” she says. Monroe recalls her sister as “gentle, sweet and innocent.”

One memory that stands out is the two of them dancing together as small children. They were at their grandparents’ house in Virginia for Christmas and had been given matching red nightgowns with fluffy white collars by their grandmother. The family was watching the Lawrence Welk Show when a segment came on where the orchestra would play and audience members would dance.

“I just remember the two of us twirling around the living room in our little princess Christmas dress nighties,” Monroe says. “That image just reminds me so much of the good times with her, and the joy, and how much we loved each other.”

After her sister was murdered, everything changed.

“Chattanooga was my home. And my husband and I moved back to Chattanooga in the early 90s after he got out of the Air Force,” Monroe says. “We thought we were going to be able to make a home there with our two daughters.”

But reminders of the murder were everywhere. Eventually they moved clear across the country to the Pacific Northwest to start over.

Monroe’s mother made the decision to meet with Nichols after he was sentenced to death. She prayed with him and gave him a Bible. Monroe is still upset about that, mostly because she thinks it has been misconstrued to suggest that her mother would have wanted leniency for Nichols.

“You have to step back a minute and think about the fact that this woman had just lost her baby girl in the most horrific way possible, and she was grieving and still in shock,” Monroe says. “I’ll be honest with you, neither one of my parents were ever the same after Karen’s murder.”

Monroe plans to be in Nashville on Dec. 11, the day scheduled for Nichols’ execution, although she hasn’t yet decided if she will be in the witness room. She knows the pain of losing her sister will never completely go away, but she hopes that Nichols’ death will bring some peace.

“We can focus on the happy memories of Karen,” she says, “and the love that we had for her, and all of that, rather than every time we turn around, we’re reliving her murder.”