Joe Freeman Britt, a flamboyant district attorney from North Carolina who notoriously and proudly wore the title of the country’s “deadliest prosecutor” by winning dozens of death-row convictions in his rural district, died April 6 in his home town of Lumberton, North Carolina. He was 80.

The death was first reported in North Carolina media outlets. His family could not be reached for comment, and a cause of death was not disclosed. Britt took office as a district attorney in 1974, quickly building a reputation as a tenacious prosecutor in a rural area of eastern North Carolina.

During the previous 27 years, no one in the two counties had been sentenced to death. After just one year on the job, Britt had won more death-row convictions than any other prosecutor in the country.

Britt ultimately won 47 death-row convictions, but only two of the people he prosecuted were eventually executed.