James Hutchins was executed by the State of North Carolina for the murders of 3 police officers. According to court documents James Hutchins would have an argument with his daughters that turned violent and the police were called. The first two responding officers Captain Roy Huskey, 42, and Deputy Owen Messersmith, 58 would be shot and killed. James Hutchins would take off and be later pulled over by a North Carolina State Trooper who did not know that he was wanted for the two murders. State Trooper Robert L. “Pete” Peterson, 37, would be shot and killed. James Hutchins would later be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. James Hutchins would be executed on March 16, 1984 by lethal injection
James Hutchins More News
James W. Hutchins was executed by lethal injection early this morning for the slayings of three law officers almost five years ago.
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. had refused on Thursday to halt the execution. Mr. Hutchins, who had asked his lawyers to drop all appeals, was the 15th convict put to death since the United States Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, and the third to die by lethal injection. The latest occurred Wednesday when James David Autry was executed in Texas.
Mr. Hutchins, 54 years old, visited with his wife, Geneva, on Thursday at Central Prison in Raleigh. He also met with a minister from his native Rutherford County, where the slayings occurred after Mr. Hutchins and his daughter, Charlotte, argued over the amount of alcohol in a bowl of punch for a high school graduation party.
A Department of Correction spokesman, Patty McQuillan, said the condemned man twice refused to order a last meal, but ate a steak sandwich and drank a soft drink about 1 P.M. He spent the evening reading a newspaper and 14 letters he had received, including one from his son, Jamie, she said. He also visited with his wife again and called Jamie and spoke to him for about two minutes.
The last execution in North Carolina was on Oct. 27, 1961, when Theodore Boykin went to the gas chamber for the rape and murder of a Duplin County housewife.
Mr. Hutchins selected as his method of execution a lethal injection of drugs, sodium thiopental, to induce a deep sleep and the paralytic drug procuronium bromide to cause death.
He was sentenced to die in September 1979 fort the shooting deaths of Sheriff’s Deputy Owen Messersmith and Highway Patrol Trooper Robert L. Peterson. He also received a life sentence for the death of another deputy, Roy Huskey. The deputies were killed answering a call for help from Mr. Hutchins’s daughter. The trooper was killed as he pursued James Hutchins as he fled in a car after the killings.
Wayne Laws was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for a double murder in 1985. According to court documents Wayne Laws would beat to death the two victims Ronnie Waddell, 35, and James Kepley, 57. Both of the victims had been brutally beaten with a hammer. Wayne Laws would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Wayne Laws is the inmate who has spent the longest time on North Carolina death row
Wayne Law 2021 Information
Offender Number:
0234897
Inmate Status:
ACTIVE
Gender:
MALE
Race:
WHITE
Ethnic Group:
EUROPEAN/N.AM./AUSTR
Birth Date:
06/12/1960
Age:
61
Current Location:
CENTRAL PRISON
Wayne Laws Other News
Wayne Laws was tried on proper indictments at the 12 August 1985 Special Criminal Session of Superior Court, Davidson County, and was convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree. The jury recommended and the trial court entered a sentence of death for each murder. On appeal the defendant brings forward numerous assignments of error which we address seriatim. We conclude that the defendant’s trial and sentencing were free of prejudicial error.
The State’s evidence tended to show that the bodies of Ronnie Waddell, 35, and James Kepley, 57, were found on a rural dirt road in Davidson County on the morning of 19 March 1984. Each had been bludgeoned to death with a hammer which had left telltale wounds about the head and torso. Each had suffered severe lacerations about the head and multiple skull fractures, including large shattered areas of the skull and round “punched out” holes in the skull about an inch in diameter. Pools of blood and pieces of flesh, hair, skull and brain matter were scattered about the bodies. One of the victims had six broken ribs. Autopsies revealed that both victims had died of extensive brain injuries inflicted with a blunt instrument and that both had been heavily intoxicated at the time.
The day after the discovery of the bodies, authorities took Texford Watts into custody and seized a Ford Mustang belonging to Watts and his sister. The defendant Wayne Laws also was taken into custody at about that time. Tire tracks found on the dirt road at the scene of the murders appeared to have been made by tires similar to those on the Mustang. Blood and hair were collected from several areas of the interior and exterior of the vehicle. After taking Watts into custody, authorities also removed several pieces of clothing from a dumpster at the apartment complex where Watts and the defendant lived. Bloodstains, hair, flesh and brain matter were found on the clothing, which included jeans and a shirt belonging to Watts and jeans, a t-shirt, shoes and socks belonging to the defendant Laws.
The victims had relatively rare blood types. Watts’ shirt was found to be stained with blood of types consistent with those of both victims. The jeans apparently belonging to Watts were stained with blood consistent with victim Waddell’s blood type. The jeans apparently worn by the defendant were stained with blood of types consistent with those of both victims. The t-shirt, shoes and socks identified as the defendant’s were stained with blood consistent with the victim Kepley’s blood type. Blood found on the Mustang also was consistent with Kepley’s blood type.
Hair consistent with that of Waddell was found on Watts’ clothing. Hair consistent with that of Kepley was found on the defendant’s clothing. Microscopic examination revealed that many of these hairs had been struck repeatedly with a blunt instrument and had been forced from the scalp by blows with a blunt instrument. Fibers collected from the Mustang were consistent with those found on the clothing of the two victims, the defendant and Watts.
At trial, Watts was a witness for the State. Watts testified that he and Wayne Laws lived in the same apartment complex but were not very close friends. They had known each other only a few weeks prior to the murders. Watts testified that on the afternoon of 18 March 1984, he and the defendant drove to Lexington in the Mustang, purchased beer and rode up and down Main Street. After eating dinner in a Lexington restaurant, they headed back to Main Street and were stopped by a police *617 officer who inquired if Watts, who was driving, was drinking. The officer let them go and they went to South Main Street and stopped at a convenience store.
Across the street from the convenience store, the two victims, Waddell and Kepley, were sitting on the curb in front of a restaurant. Watts knew Waddell and recognized Kepley. Watts and Wayne Laws briefly talked with Waddell and Kepley. Waddell tried to sell Watts a tire he had with him and asked Watts for a beer. Watts and the defendant drove away but later saw the victims a little closer to town, still with the tire. Watts and the defendant stopped to talk with the victims, and Waddell asked them to take him somewhere he could get rid of the tire. Waddell and Kepley sat in the back seat of the Mustang, and Waddell began giving Watts directions. It was then dark.
After awhile, they came to a dirt road where there were no houses. Watts stopped the car on the dirt road to get out and relieve himself. Watts testified that after he returned to the car, the defendant Laws got out and asked one of the victims if he also needed to relieve himself. The defendant and both victims left the car, and Watts then heard a noise behind the car which sounded like “licks being passed.” When he got out to investigate, Watts saw Kepley lying at the rear of the car, apparently unconscious, and the defendant beating Waddell with his fists a few feet away.
Watts testified that he told Wayne Laws to leave Waddell alone, but the defendant pushed Watts out of the way, got the car keys from the ignition switch, took a claw hammer out of the trunk and began beating Waddell with the hammer. Watts testified that after Waddell fell to the ground, the defendant continued beating him on the head with the hammer. When Watts tried to stop him, the defendant threatened to kill Watts and struck him on the hand with the hammer. After beating Waddell, the defendant started beating Kepley, who was still motionless on the ground, with the hammer. Watts testified that he ran up the road and hid until he heard no more noises. He said he then returned to the Mustang and drove home.
Conflicting statements which Watts had made to police were introduced at trial. He first told police that, after the attack on the victims, he did not see the defendant again until the next day. He later said that while driving home, he saw the defendant on the side of the road and gave him a ride home.
Watts testified at trial that he had given his bloody clothes, later found in the dumpster, to the defendant at the defendant’s request. He said that he had started to telephone police about the killings on the night they occurred but had hung up the telephone before the operator connected him with police. He also testified that when he saw the defendant the next day, the defendant threatened to kill him if he told anyone about the killings.
A statement which the Wayne Laws had given to police after his arrest was introduced at trial. He more or less confirmed the events described by Watts, up to the time at which they had stopped to talk to Waddell and Kepley in Lexington. The defendant said he remembered stopping and talking with two people whom he did not know, but he could not remember anything after that because he had been drinking.
During the separate sentencing proceeding required by N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000, the trial court submitted and the jury found two aggravating circumstances as to each murder: that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, and that the murder was part of a course of conduct which included commission of other crimes of violence against other persons. Five mitigating circumstances were submitted to the jury: that the defendant had not been convicted previously of a felony involving violence to persons, that the defendant had been a good and responsible employee, that the defendant’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the law was impaired, that the defendant helped to support his family, and any other mitigating circumstances which the jury might find from the evidence. The jury found the *618 four specific circumstances submitted but not “any other” circumstances.
Rebecca Blackmore was sixteen years old from North Carolina when she murdered her newborn baby. According to court documents Rebecca Blackmore would fatally stab the newborn baby to death using a pair of scissors. This teen killer would be sentenced to ten to twelve years in prison
A North Carolina teen was sentenced to 10 to 12 years in prison on a reduced murder charge after she pleaded guilty on Monday to the stabbing death of her infant daughter.
Authorities said Rebecca Blackmore, who was 16 years old when her baby died in 2011, killed her newborn child by stabbing the baby girl to death with scissors.
According to Lindsay Voorhees, a spokeswoman for the Currituck County Sheriff’s Office, the Knotts Island teen went to Chesapeake Regional Medical Center on June 17, 2011. There, she told employees she had just given birth and the baby was dead in her home.
When authorities went to Blackmore’s residence, they found the baby’s body hidden inside Blackmore’s bedroom closet.
The medical examiner’s office in Greenville, N.C., later determined the baby was alive at birth and survived only for a very short period of time, Currituck County Sheriff Susan Johnson previously told HuffPost.
The infant’s death was caused by “multiple stab wounds,” according to Johnson.
North Carolina has a safe haven law, which states “you can leave your baby, up to 7 days old, with an employee on duty at any hospital” and several other approved locations. The mother is not required to provide any identifying information. Children who are dropped off become a ward of the state, according to the law.
Blackmore — previously a student at Currituck County High School — was charged as an adult in the killing.
With the plea, prosecutors lowered the charge from first degree murder, which could have resulted in a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Phillip Wilkinson was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murders of Judy Hudsonand her two children, Chrystal Hudson, and her son, Larry Hudson According to court documents Phillip Wilkinson would sexually assault and murder Cassandra Rundle and Chrystal Hudson before murdering Larry Hudson. The three were beaten to death with a bowling pin. Phillip Wilkinson was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
On 9 January 1992, defendant turned himself in to the Fayetteville Police Department, waived his rights, and gave a tape-recorded confession to Sergeant Jeff Stafford. During this confession, defendant admitted to being a “peeping Tom”; to breaking and entering the apartment of Judy Hudson on 29 July 1991 in the middle of the night; to beating to death with a bowling pin Ms. Hudson, her nineteen-year-old daughter, Chrystal Hudson, and her eleven-year-old son, Larry Hudson; to attempting to rape Chrystal Hudson; to sexually assaulting and anally and vaginally penetrating Ms. Hudson and Chrystal Hudson; to stealing cigarettes, money, and a cigarette lighter from two pocketbooks in the apartment; and to breaking into the apartment a second time to retrieve the bowling pin and a lightbulb that he had used to sexually assault Ms. Hudson.
Defendant was subsequently indicted for three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree burglary, one count of attempted first-degree rape, four counts of first-degree sexual offense, and two counts of felonious larceny. On 22 August 1994, defendant pled guilty to all charges. After the presentation of evidence by the State regarding the basis for defendant’s pleas, the court directed that with respect to one of the first-degree burglary counts, it would instead proceed on a charge of second-degree burglary based upon the evidence that at the time defendant entered the Hudsons’ apartment, all victims were deceased.
James Thomas was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the sexual assault and murder of Teresa Ann West. According to court documents James Thomas would sexually assault and murder Teresa Ann West at the Sir Walter Tourist Home in Raleigh North Carolina. James Thomas would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
James Thomas assumes that he is going to die. It’s just that now he doesn’t know when.
He states this matter-of-factly as he strains to see the reporter through the thick glass and bars in the visitation room at Central Prison. His speech is low and measured, that of a man who has had more than two decades to ponder his fate. He pauses frequently between thoughts as if he is weighing the effect everything he says will have on the public.
He was scheduled to make the walk to the Prison’s death chamber this coming Friday, but a court battle over the role of physicians in executions put his lethal injection and two others on hold last Thursday. Marcus Robinson had been scheduled to be put to death this past Friday, James Campbell on Feb. 9.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald W. Stephens granted injunctions in all three cases last week. At issue is a conflict between a North Carolina Medical Board Policy that prohibits doctors from taking part in an execution and state law that requires a doctor to be present.
Despite the injunction and assurances from his attorneys, Thomas is not convinced that he will not make the walk to the death chamber at the end of the week.
“I’m keeping my focus narrow right now, that in my mind Friday is still a possibility,” Thomas said.
Thomas was convicted in the 1986 killing of Teresa West in Wake County. She was strangled with a pair of pantyhose and sexually assaulted with a telephone receiver.
In court documents, attorneys said Thomas went to buy heroin from West, a Raleigh boarding house manager. They say his drug problem, along with a history of severe abuse as a child, caused him to act impulsively. Thomas says he thinks about what he did all of the time and makes no excuses.
“I can’t explain it to myself. I can’t explain it to myself,” said Thomas.
Thomas said that at one time he thought he deserved to die, but now, he added, he has changed for the better. He said that in prison, he has studied, taught others and developed a strong faith. He understands why some people, especially victim’s family members, want to see him executed, but he wants to live.
“Somewhere along the line, I realized that I could honor Teresa by being the best person I could be,” Thomas said.
Not everyone agrees with the judge’s decision to halt executions. Wayne Uber’s twin brother was murdered in Florida during an armed robbery. Since the incident, he has become an outspoken supporter of capital punishment.
“I think we’re showing a high amount of regard for the agony and pain that an inmate might feel and a lot of disregard for victims,” Uber said.
West’s uncle met with the governor when Thomas’ execution was still on the calendar. WRAL spoke with him last week after that meeting.
“It’s just a tragedy for both families. We have no malice, but we do want justice to be carried out and justice to be done,” said former Craven County Sheriff C.W. Bland.
Thomas likens death row to a neighborhood where he has gotten to know everyone—167 inmates to be exact— and their stories. He believes capital punishment is unjust and is something whose consequences state leaders should fully consider as they enter this debate.
“How do we punish? That’s what it’s about,” said Thomas.
Thomas knows that he may still have to make that walk to the death chamber at a later date, but hopes against hope that he will be spared.
“Deep down, I am absolutely hopeful that can happen,” said Thomas.
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