Death Row Inmates | My Crime Library

Ramiro Gonzales Execution Scheduled For Today

The State of Texas is getting ready to execute Ramiro Gonzales for the sexual assault and murder of Bridget Townsend in 2001

According to court documents Ramiro Gonzales would go to the home of Bridget Townsend boyfriend in order to rob him of drugs and money. However once at the home Ramiro was confronted by Bridget Townsend. Gonzales would sexually assault and murder the teen girl

Ramiro Gonzales would be arrested after he sexually assaulted another woman and when in custody he would confess to the murder of Bridget Townsend and lead them to her body

Ramiro Gonzales would be convicted and sentenced to death

Texas is planning on executing Ramiro Gonzales this evening, June 26 2024, by lethal injection

Update – Ramiro Gonzales was executed on June 26 2024

Ramiro Gonzales Execution News

The State of Texas is set to execute Ramiro Gonzales on Wednesday evening for a 2001 murder he committed when he was 18. His latest legal challenges were based in part on his mother’s alcohol use while she was pregnant with him and the sexual abuse he suffered as a child.

In recent pleadings, Gonzales, now 41, said that he never received a proper post-conviction review and that he sought to reduce his sentence to life in prison. Gonzales also argued that he is ineligible for capital punishment since a state expert recanted testimony that Gonzales would always pose a risk of violence to others — a finding that is required to receive the death penalty under Texas state law.

While serving time for an unrelated assault in 2002, Gonzales confessed to the rape and murder of Bridget Townsend in Medina County, west of San Antonio, and guided police to her remains. Gonzales fatally shot Townsend in 2001, when both were 18 years old, after she intervened while he was trying to steal drugs at the home of her boyfriend, who was his drug dealer, according to court records.

In a clemency application, Gonzales said that while on death row since 2006, he has devoted his life to Christianity and served as a spiritual leader for others facing the death penalty. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously rejected Gonzales’ request for leniency.

In a statement on Monday, Gonzales’ attorneys, Thea Posel and Raoul Schonemann, called their client “a man who today is, in almost every sense, a different person than he was when he killed Bridget Townsend in 2001.”

“Ramiro lives this transformation every day,” they said, “and it is evident to prison officials, faith leaders, friends, family, his lawyers and many people across the country and the world who have seen and been touched by his story, his growth, his faith and his commitment to change.”

A pleading filed this month by Gonzales’ legal team challenging his death sentence asserted that he didn’t receive effective counsel during his post-conviction review. His initial petition for that review was deemed “frivolous” by the courts.

Gonzales’ court-appointed lawyer at the time did not conduct an investigation and failed to present evidence in the initial petition that Gonzales’ mother regularly drank alcohol during her pregnancy, a June pleading read. Gonzales was later diagnosed with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The initial petition also failed to outline the impact of sexual abuse by a family member that Gonzales endured throughout his childhood, according to court filings.

Gonzales never had the “one full and fair opportunity” to file an adequate habeas petition, Posel said.

Posel said such a deficient initial petition would not happen today, now that attorneys and investigators from the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, which opened in 2010, are available for nearly all capital post-conviction cases.

Gonzales’ pleading this month cited research about his childhood conducted by Kate Porterfield, a clinical psychologist who studies the impact of trauma on children.

“The crimes that he committed are tragically and inextricably linked to the trauma he suffered and the lack of care provided to him,” Porterfield said of Gonzales’ childhood.

The failure to properly investigate and present this evidence during Gonzales’ initial habeas petition showed that his lawyer was ineffective, his current legal team argued while asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reconsider its dismissal. The state’s highest criminal court denied the request on Monday.

Gonzales’ legal team asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ denial and halt his execution, arguing that Gonzales does not present a future danger to others and so cannot be executed under Texas law. That petition was still pending as of Wednesday morning.

In his clemency application, Gonzales said he feels daily remorse for his actions and the impact the killing has had on Townsend’s family.

“I took everything that was valuable from a mother, just because of my stupidity, because of what I did, because of my actions. And you can’t give that back,” Gonzales said in a video submitted to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on June 4 as part of his clemency application.

In 2022, Gonzales requested a reprieve to donate a kidney to a stranger, which was denied. But that same year, the court halted Gonzales’ execution to consider the false testimony by Dr. Edward Gripon, a forensic psychiatrist.

During the punishment phase of Gonzales’ trial, Gripon had testified that there was substantial evidence that people who commit rape will likely continue committing sexual offenses. Gripon later reported that those statistics are inaccurate. State courts ruled that despite the reversal, the execution could take place.

Gonzales’ attorneys had also attempted to halt his execution because of his age at the time of the crime. They cited multiple studies and medical or legal associations that have proposed raising the age for death penalty eligibility from 18 to 21, based on brain development.

Alongside his clemency application, a group of faith leaders had sent a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, asking him to spare Gonzales’ life and allow him to spend the rest of his life serving others in custody.

“Even if he never sees the light of day as a free person, he can bring that inner light to others in the darkest corners of our society just by being there and sharing the faith he has,” said Cantor Michael Zoosman, co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, in the clemency video.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/06/26/texas-execution-ramiro-gonzales

Ramiro Gonzales Execution

Texas executed Ramiro Gonzales by lethal injection on Wednesday for a 2001 murder, the state Department of Criminal Justice said, following unsuccessful appeals to the US Supreme Court that argued, in part, he should have been ineligible for the death penalty under state law because he is no longer dangerous.

Gonzales, 41, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2006 for the sexual assault and killing of 18-year-old Bridget Townsend, court records show. His execution was the first of two – the other in Oklahoma – scheduled this week in the United States.

Gonzales was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m., the state criminal justice department said.

The department provided Gonzales’ last statement before he was executed, in which he repeatedly apologized to the Townsend family and said he “never stopped praying” for their forgiveness: “I can’t put into words the pain I have caused y’all, the hurt what I took away that I cannot give back.”

“I hope this apology is enough. I lived the rest of this life for you guys to the best of my ability for restitution, restoration, taking responsibility,” Gonzales said. “I never stopped praying that you would forgive me and that one day I would have this opportunity to apologize.”

During the penalty phase of Gonzales’ trial, jurors were required to find, as they are in all capital cases in Texas, a “probability” Gonzales would continue to “commit criminal acts of violence.” Without this determination, capital defendants in the Lone Star State are not eligible for the death penalty, per state law.

In their appeals to the Supreme Court, Gonzales’ attorneys said his track record these last 18 years shows he is not dangerous, pointing to his commitment to his Christian faith, ministry to others behind bars and his unsuccessful attempts to donate a kidney to a stranger in need.

Additionally, they said the evidence relied upon to make the finding of future dangerousness was false: An expert witness who diagnosed the inmate with antisocial personality disorder relied on recidivism data later found to be incorrect, and he has since evaluated Gonzales and walked back his testimony.

In a pair of brief orders Wednesday, the US Supreme Court gave no comment in its denial of Gonzales’ requests. There were no noted dissents.

Gonzales’ attorneys, Thea Posel and Raoul Schonemann, said in a statement Monday: “Ramiro not only has disproven the jury’s prediction – he has never committed a single act or threat of violence since he was sentenced to death in 2006 – but in fact actively contributes to prison society in exceptional ways. He should not be executed.”

The state of Texas had also opposed Gonzales’ appeals, arguing in part his team had misconstrued the eligibility requirement and contending the question of whether Gonzales would continue to be a threat is not limited to the inmate’s behavior on death row.

Even when his behavior post-conviction is taken into account, “there’s undoubtedly sufficient evidence to uphold the finding of future dangerousness,” attorneys for the state wrote, pointing to the subsequent kidnapping and rape of another woman and a litany of transgressions he committed while in jail.

“Even if a jury could somehow consider events that had not happened yet, i.e., Gonzales’s behavior on death row, the jury could still have rationally believed Gonzales would be a danger in the future,” they said.

On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to recommend clemency in a 7-0 vote. Without that recommendation, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is limited by state law to issuing Gonzales a one-time 30-day reprieve.

CNN has reached out to the Medina County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, and members of Townsend’s family for comment.

In his final statement before execution, Gonzales also thanked his family and friends, along with two officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for “the opportunity to become responsible, to learn accountability and to make good.”

Gonzales murdered Townsend in January 2001, after he called the home of his drug supplier, her boyfriend, in search of drugs, according to a 2009 Texas appeals court opinion affirming the inmate’s conviction and death sentence.

When Townsend told Gonzales her boyfriend wasn’t home, he went to the house in search of drugs. He stole money, then kidnapped Townsend, tying her hands and feet before driving her to a location near his family’s ranch, the opinion states. There, he raped and fatally shot her, it says.

The case went unsolved for 18 months. Then, while sitting in jail after pleading guilty to the rape of another woman, Gonzales confessed to Townsend’s killing and led authorities to her body.

Gonzales’ execution was the nation’s eighth this year, with the ninth slated for Thursday in Oklahoma, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization that tracks capital punishment in the US and has in the past been critical of the way it’s administered.

Oklahoma intends to execute Richard Rojem for the 1984 kidnapping, rape and murder of his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Layla Cummings, court records show. The state’s parole board voted last week against recommending clemency for Rojem, who claims he is innocent, according to CNN affiliate KOCO.

Rojem, like Gonzales, would be the second person executed in their respective states so far in 2024, according to the center’s data. By this time last year, 13 inmates had been put to death in the US, the data shows.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/26/us/texas-death-row-ramiro-gonzales/index.html

David Hosier Execution Scheduled For Today

David Hosier was sentenced to death by the State of Missouri for a double murder that was committed in 2009. Now baring a last minute step in by the Missouri State Governor he will be put to death today, July 11 2024, by lethal injections

According to court documents David Hosier began dating Angela Gilpin in Jefferson City who was separated from her husband Rodney Gilpin. However when Hosier learned that Angela and Rodney were trying to rekindle their marriage he would react by going to her appointment and killing the pair

David Hosier would be arrested, convicted of both murders and sentenced to death

David Hosier Case

Death row inmate David Hosier is set to be executed in Missouri on Tuesday, which would make him the state’s second execution of the year and the nation’s seventh.

Hosier, 69, is set to be executed by lethal injection for 2009 murder of his former lover, Angela Gilpin, a mother of two sons who was working to repair her marriage and escape Hosier, according to court records.

Hosier has maintained his innocence since his conviction and recently told the Kansas City Star: “You cannot show remorse for something you did not do.”

Republican Missouri Gov. Michael Parson rejected Hosier’s last petition for clemency on Monday, saying that “he displays no remorse for his senseless violence.”

Here’s what you need to know.

Sometime between 2008 and 2009, Hosier got involved romantically with Angela Gilpin, who had separated from her husband. When Gilpin decided to end the affair and reconcile with her husband, Hosier got angry.

Two weeks before she was killed, Gilpin applied for a restraining order against Hosier and was looking to move apartments, writing to her landlord that she could no longer live next to Hosier.

“He scares me. I don’t know he will do next,” she wrote, according to court records.

The day before the killings, Hosier left a voicemail for a friend saying that he was going to “finish it” and called another friend to say that he was going to “eliminate his problems,” court records show.

The next morning, a neighbor found Gilpin’s and her husband Rodney’s bodies at the threshold of their Jefferson City apartment. They had been shot to death.

In Gilpin’s purse was an application for a protective order from Hosier that said “he knows everywhere I go, who I go with, who comes to my home,” adding that he was stalking and harassing her every day.

Hosier was arrested in Oklahoma later that day following a pursuit and a standoff, after which Hosier told police: “Shoot me and get it over with,” according to court documents.

Attorneys for Hosier have argued that the trial attorneys failed to call a medical professional to explain to jurors how a 2007 stroke had affected Hosier’s mental state. The attorneys have also argued that the judge that presided over the trial and sentencing had a conflict of interest, having prosecuted Hosier in 1998 for not paying child support.

The Missouri State Supreme Court rejected Hosier’s appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in August 2023.

The Federal Public Defender’s office produced a video pleading for clemency for Hosier. In the video, multiple family members point to the death of Hosier’s father when he was 16 years old as the beginning of a downward spiral.

“He’s been angry with all the women in his life, including me and my mother and it was not like that for him before my dad died,” Hosier’s sister, Kay Schardien, says in the clemency video. “My dad’s death was just like a crater and David fell into that crater.”

In denying Hosier’s clemency petition on Monday, Parson said in a statement that Gilpin “had her life stolen by David Hosier because he could not accept it when she ended their romantic involvement.”

“For these heinous acts, Hosier earned maximum punishment under the law,” he said. “I cannot imagine the pain experienced by Angela’s and Rodney’s loved ones but hope that carrying out Hosier’s sentence according to the court’s order brings closure.”

Hosier is scheduled to be executed shortly after 6 p.m. CT on Tuesday, June 11. The window for the execution runs for 24 hours, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

The execution will be carried out at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, about an hour south of St. Louis

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/11/david-hosier-execution-missiouri-what-to-know/74039081007

David Hosier Execution

Missouri carried out its second execution this year on Tuesday after Gov. Mike Parson denied a request for clemency filed by inmate David Hosier.

Hosier was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. local time at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri, a corrections spokesperson said in a statement.

Hosier, 69, has maintained his innocence in the double murder for which he was sentenced to death. He submitted a clemency petition in the wake of multiple prior appeals, including one that the Missouri Supreme Court rejected five years ago when it unanimously upheld the state’s decision to execute him. But the authority to commute Hosier’s sentence or halt his execution — or not — ultimately rests with the governor, and some lawmakers have in recent days called on Parson to spare his life.

Hosier was placed on Missouri’s death row in 2013 after being convicted of capital murder in the 2009 deaths of Angela Gilpin and Rodney Gilpin at their home in Jefferson City. The governor, who has overseen 10 executions since beginning his term in office, said Hosier killed the couple “in a jealous rage,” echoing the prosecution’s argument during his criminal trial.

Hosier was convicted of fatally shooting the Gilpins during an armed burglary, after previously having a romantic relationship with Angela Gilpin. She and her husband were murdered around one month after Angela Gilpin ended the affair with Hosier, according to court documents.

“Ms. Angela Gilpin had her life stolen by David Hosier because he could not accept it when she ended their romantic involvement. He displays no remorse for his senseless violence,” Parson said in a statement Monday, announcing that Hosier’s clemency petition was denied. “For these heinous acts, Hosier earned maximum punishment under the law. I cannot imagine the pain experienced by Angela’s and Rodney’s loved ones but hope that carrying out Hosier’s sentence according to the Court’s order brings closure.”

Hosier already had a criminal record and owned firearms when the Gilpins were killed, and in the aftermath of the murders, Angela Gilpin’s purse was found to contain an application for a protective order against him as well as a statement saying she feared Hosier may shoot her and Rodney, documents show.

Parson’s office said Tuesday that “Hosier, with a decades-long history of violence against women, would not let Angela reconcile with Rodney, stalking and harassing her for weeks before murdering her and her husband.”

Before the Gilpins’ case, Hosier was convicted and sentenced to prison for assaulting and seriously injuring another woman.

Hosier’s defense attorneys have over the years tried to appeal the death sentence on the grounds that no physical evidence linked Hosier to the murders. “No confession, no eyewitnesses, no fingerprints, and none of David’s DNA or other personal effects were found at the crime scene,” they wrote in his 2019 appeal. Attorneys also argued that Hosier’s prior conviction for assault should not have been admissible evidence in the Gilpin trial because it unfairly prejudiced the jury.

His recent clemency petition focused mainly on Hosier’s personal life. Much of the petition centered on a stroke Hosier suffered in 2007 that attorneys said left him with lasting brain damage, as well as the 1971 murder of his father, an Indiana State Police sergeant, which his defense characterized as a traumatic event that drove his mental health struggles in adulthood. Hosier went on to serve in the United States Navy and as an emergency medical technician and firefighter in Jefferson County. His health has declined in the last several months, with the petition citing heart issues that intensified in early May.

U.S. Reps. Cori Bush and Emmanuel Cleaver, both of Missouri, urged Parson to grant Hosier’s clemency petition in a letter to the governor last week. They referenced the inmate’s medical issues and mental illness and suggested that his former attorneys’ choice to omit “vital medical information” during the criminal trial could amount to “a potential violation of Mr. Hosier’s Sixth Amendment rights.”

“Mr. Hosier’s debilitating condition further emphasizes the need for clemency in this case. He does not pose a threat to those around him and deserves humane treatment as he suffers from heart failure,” Bush and Cleaver wrote in that letter.

Hosier told The Associated Press he was unhappy with his current defense team’s approach to the clemency request, which he thought should have focused more on the lack of forensic evidence tying him to the Gilpins’ deaths and less on his childhood.

“They did exactly the opposite of what I wanted them to do,” Hosier said of the clemency petition, according to the AP. “I told them I didn’t want the ‘boo-hoo, woe is me.’ All that stuff happened 53 years ago, OK? It has nothing to do with why I’m sitting here right now.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-hosier-missouri-execution-2009-murders-death-row-governor-denies-clemency

Kenneth Eugene Smith Execution Scheduled For Today

Kenneth Eugene Smith is to be executed today, January 25 2024. unless the Supreme Court steps in

According to court documents Kenneth Eugene Smith and John Forrest Parker were paid a thousand dollars to murder the wife of Rev. Charles Sennett, Elizabeth Sennett. The woman would be found dead she had been badly beaten and stabbed to death

Rev Charles Sennett would never go to trial as he was found dead with a gunshot wound to his chest.

Kenneth Eugene Smith and John Forrest Parker would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

John Forrest Parker was executed in 2010

Kenneth Eugene Smith execution if it goes through is suppose to be done using nitrogen gas which is controversial as it has been untested in recent history on humans. Smith who was almost executed before however the execution would be stopped after authorities failed to find a good vein for the lethal injection process

Kenneth Eugene Smith Execution

Kenneth Eugene Smith News

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to halt Alabama from proceeding with the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas to carry out the death penalty on convicted murderer Kenneth Smith, who survived a botched lethal injection in 2022 that helped prompt a review of the state’s death penalty procedures.

The justices denied Kenneth Eugene Smith’s request to stay his execution, which is scheduled for Thursday, and declined to hear his legal challenge contending that a second execution attempt by Alabama – after the first failed attempt caused him severe trauma – would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

No justice publicly dissented from the decision.

Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, is separately contesting the legality of Alabama’s nitrogen gas protocol on Eighth Amendment and other grounds. That litigation still could come to the Supreme Court, potentially giving the justices another opportunity to decide whether to halt the execution. A judge ruled against Smith concerning the protocol on Jan. 10. The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision on Wednesday.

Kenneth Eugene Smith’s attorney Robert Grass declined to comment.

A majority of the Supreme Court’s justices in 2022 cleared the way
, opens new tab for the first attempted execution of Smith, who was sentenced to death for his role in a 1988 murder-for-hire plot. The nine-member court’s three liberal justices dissented from that previous decision.

Alabama’s gassing method – called nitrogen hypoxia – was designed to deprive Smith of oxygen by placing a mask connected to a cylinder of nitrogen over his face.

Kenneth Eugene Smith’s botched execution was the third consecutive instance in which Alabama officials encountered problems or delays inserting intravenous lines for a scheduled lethal injection, with two of the executions, including Smith’s, eventually called off, according to court filings.

The problems prompted Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, a Republican, to announce a review of the state’s execution procedures. Officials completed the review a few months later, saying they obtained new equipment and would add to the pool of available medical personnel for executions.

Smith in May 2023 challenged Alabama’s plan for a second execution attempt, asserting in state court that it would violate the Eighth Amendment after the first attempt, according to his lawyers, caused him severe physical and psychological pain, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

State officials during that first execution attempt repeatedly tried but failed to place the necessary intravenous lines or a central line in his collarbone area before calling off the execution after 11 p.m. Smith’s lawyers have characterized the experience as torture and said that it “exposed him to the severe mental anguish of a mock execution.”

Lower courts in Alabama dismissed Smith’s challenge. Smith’s lawyers urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, calling Alabama’s nitrogen-gas protocol “recently released and untested,” and “a novel method of execution that has never been attempted by any state or the federal government.”

Alabama Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall in a filing called the method “perhaps the most humane method of execution ever devised.”

Ivey set Smith’s execution to take place within a 30-hour time frame beginning at 12 a.m. on Thursday and expiring at 6 a.m. the following day.

Smith was convicted in the 1988 killing Elizabeth Sennett after he and an accomplice were hired by her husband Charles Sennett, a Christian minister who had taken out a large insurance policy on his wife, according to prosecutors. She was stabbed repeatedly and beaten with a blunt object.

Charles Sennett later committed suicide. Smith’s accomplice also was convicted and sentenced to death, with the execution carried out in 2010.

The U.N. human rights office on Jan. 16 called on Alabama to halt the planned execution, saying it could amount to torture and violate American commitments under international law.

U.S. states that still allow the death penalty have found it increasingly difficult to obtain barbiturates used in lethal-injection execution protocols, in part because of a European ban preventing pharmaceutical companies from selling drugs to be used in executions. Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma have introduced new gas-based protocols.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/supreme-court-declines-halt-first-us-nitrogen-gas-execution-alabama-case-2024-01-24/

Casey McWhorter Execution Scheduled 11/16/23

Casey McWhorter is scheduled to be executed by the State of Alabama tonight for the murder of Edward Lee Williams Sr.

According to court documents Casey McWhorter and two teenage accomplices, including the son of the victim, would force their way into the home of Edward Lee Williams Sr. who would be murdered during the robbery

Casey McWhorter would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Casey McWhorter execution is scheduled for 11/16/23 however the Governor put a thirty hour window on the execution meaning McWhorter could be executed after midnight

Casey McWhorter was executed by lethal injection on November 16 2023

Casey McWhorter Case

Casey McWhorter spoke calmly about dying.

McWhorter, 49, is set to die by lethal injection sometime Thursday night or early Friday for the 1993 slaying of Edward Lee Williams Sr. in Marshall County. Gov. Kay Ivey set a 30-hour possibility for the execution to happen, with the timeframe ending at 6 a.m. Friday.

And, he said he’s ready.

“Let me make it very clear, I’m hoping that we get the stay and whatnot. But at the same time, I’m okay with whatever happens,” he said in a lengthy phone interview with AL.com late Wednesday. While he’s talked to reporters in the past, McWhorter said this was his final interview

“I’m in a great place,” he said confidently. “I’m in a really good place. I’m more concerned with my family and friends, how they’re going to deal with things. How they’re going to feel.”

He told his family not to be sad if he dies by lethal injection Thursday night. “I know where I’m going, there’s no doubt in my mind about that. My concern is how they’re going to handle things.”

McWhorter doesn’t argue that he’s guilty of murder. But the state is guilty, too, “in the most premeditated way possible.”

“If a normal citizen did what they are trying to do now, they would be labeled a Ted Bundy. They would be labeled one of the worst of the worst. But because its state-sanctioned, it’s okay.”

The case

McWhorter said he’s sorry to the Williams family, and he regrets what happened that night in 1993.

When asked what he would say to the family, he replied: “That I’m sorry. That I hope they found some peace and I hope that they’ve found, you know, reasons to smile at the memory of the person that’s gone.”

McWhorter is set to be executed for the 1993 shooting death of Williams Sr., who was the father of one of McWhorter’s friends. McWhorter was 18 at the time of the slaying, and has been on Alabama Death Row since 1994 after a jury voted 10-2 for him to die. He was 19 when, on Friday the 13th, he was sent to William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore where Alabama Death Row is housed and he will soon face execution.

It will have been more than 30 years since the crime.

Court records state that ahead of Williams Sr.’s death, McWhorter and two other teens — one who was Williams’ son, then-15-year-old Edward Lee Williams Jr.—formed a plan to rob the elder Williams. While court records say the teens planned to rob and shoot Williams Sr. at his home, McWhorter said that isn’t true.

“It was something that wasn’t supposed to happen. Yeah, we talked kid, tough talk… (but) it was just talk. It was never supposed to go down the way it went down.”

“He came home early. He wasn’t supposed to be there. It just spiraled so fast to hell.”

On the night of the slaying, court records state McWhorter and a 16-year-old co-defendant entered Williams’ house while he wasn’t home. They were there for hours, ransacking the house and making silencers for the two rifles they found inside. When Williams finally returned home, the teens struggled with him over the guns, before shooting Williams “at least 11 times,” records show.

The teens stole the victim’s wallet and fled in the victim’s truck, dividing the money and items taken from the house and separated.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case in 2021.

While Casey McWhorter, at just 19, headed to death row, none of his co-defendants faced capital punishment.

After the 1993 shooting, McWhorter said he tried to take his own life by overdosing. “It just was playing over and over in my head, and I didn’t know how to get rid of it. And I still haven’t. I’ll never get rid of it.”

“There’s some things that you see that you can’t unsee, and the death of a person is one of those things.”

Growing up

Casey McWhorter said his childhood and resentment against his father affected him in a way where he always sought attention, even if that was bad attention. “It was a really mean cycle that I didn’t know how to communicate to people, I didn’t know how to fix in my own head. It put me in some really bad situations.”

When he was sentenced to death and hauled south down I-65 in a police car, McWhorter said all he could think was, “Oh my god, I’m going to death row.” The first night he spent there, McWhorter said he panicked about big, scary murderers breaking into his cell to kill him.

But then he listened and heard other men on death row talking and even laughing, being what he called “everyday people.”

“I thought, ‘did they carry me to the wrong place?’”

It took a bit of time to adjust and to grow up behind bars, but Casey McWhorter did. It was his grandmother who finally convinced him that he was better than the actions that put him there, and it was time to act like it.

Casey McWhorter, who proudly proclaimed he could have played college basketball, got his GED. Then, he took more than a dozen hours of college courses, remembering the work he put into his AP classes in high school. Science and math classes were his favorite, he said — skills that would have helped him if he had joined the Air Force, like he once thought he would.

After the Alabama Department of Corrections took away college classes for people who were sentenced to death and life without parole, McWhorter became a book worm, reading anything he could put his hands on. He started writing letters, becoming an avid pen pal.

Casey McWhorter’s closest friends also sit on death row. His former best friend, a man he calls a brother, was Max Landon Payne. Payne was executed in 2009, McWhorter recalled emotionally.

Now, one of his closest friends is Kenneth Smith. Smith was set to die last November, but prison workers couldn’t get his intravenous line established for the lethal drugs in the allotted time frame. Now, Smith is set to be the first person in the world to be executed using nitrogen hypoxia in January.

Smith claims he went through hours of torture while prison workers jabbed him with needles, trying to start the IV. Casey McWhorter said he worries that could be his experience.

He didn’t get to say goodbye to Smith, which made McWhorter emotional during an hour-long phone interview.

By his estimation, Casey McWhorter thinks about 75% of people on Alabama Death Row don’t deserve to be there – including him.

“I’ve said I did something wrong and I deserve time to be taken from me for that. But I don’t feel that my life should be that price,” he said.

Court records show two co-defendants took plea deals in the case. Edward Lee Williams Jr. is currently serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling prevents juveniles who were under 18 at the time of a crime from being sentenced to death.

For many years, it upset him that he was the only one facing death for his crime.

Growing up, Casey McWhorter said he knew what capital punishment was. But he didn’t know it could apply to “someone like me.”

“I didn’t know that your average Joe could go out and get a capital case. I thought it was for the Ted Bundys, the Timothy McVeigh.”

“I didn’t think one mistake could put you here.”

He said the Williams family didn’t push for the death penalty, and it was prosecutors who were set on capital punishment.

He’s still holding out hope for a court-ordered stay, or for Gov. Kay Ivey to issue clemency, but he’s prepared to die. He’s still deciding if he’s going to make a final statement.

“At this point in the game it’s in God’s hands and I’m okay with whatever decision he makes.”

When asked what he wanted to tell the world before he died, Casey McWhorter said: “To not judge your fellow man by the worst mistake that they’ve made. But to judge that man by the lesson he learned from that mistake, and how he’s applied it to his life.”

Casey McWhorter spoke calmly about dying. He spoke calmly and quietly about everything, except when he mentioned his mom.

“That woman is a saint,” he said. “That’s what’s so hard on me sometimes. I’m ashamed of all the tears I’ve caused her, and she’s done nothing but love me and support me and be there for me. Sadly, it just took years for me to put that in perspective.”

“I hope I leave her enough to be proud.”

https://www.al.com/news/huntsville/2023/11/casey-mcwhorter-alabama-death-row-inmate-facing-execution-i-didnt-think-one-mistake-could-put-you-here.html

Casey McWhorter Execution

An Alabama inmate convicted of killing a man during a 1993 robbery when he was a teenager was executed Thursday by lethal injection.

Casey McWhorter, 49, was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m. at a southwest Alabama prison, authorities said. McWhorter was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for his role in the robbery and shooting death of Edward Lee Williams, 34, on Feb. 18, 1993.

Prosecutors said McWhorter, who was three months past his 18th birthday at the time of the killing, conspired with two younger teenagers, including Williams’ 15-year-old son, to steal money and other items from Williams’ home and then kill him. The jury that convicted McWhorter recommended a death sentence by a vote of 10-2, which a judge, who had the final decision, imposed, according to court records. The younger teens — Edward Lee Williams Jr. and Daniel Miner, who was 16 — were sentenced to life in prison, according to court records

“It’s kind of unfortunate that we had to wait so long for justice to be served, but it’s been served,” the victim’s brother, Bert Williams, told reporters after the execution. He added that the lethal injection provided McWhorter a peaceful death unlike the violent end his brother endured.

Prison officials opened the curtain to the execution chamber at 6:30 p.m. McWhorter, who was strapped to the gurney with the intravenous lines already attached, moved slightly at the beginning of the procedure, rubbing his fingers together, but his breathing slowed until it was no longer visible.

“I would like to say I love my mother and family,” McWhorter said in his final words. “I would like to say to the victim’s family I’m sorry. I hope you find peace.”

McWhorter also used his final words to take an apparent verbal jab at his executioner, the prison warden who faced domestic violence accusations decades ago, saying that, “it’s not lost on me that a habitual abuser of women is carrying out this procedure.”

Prosecutors said McWhorter and Miner went to the Williamses’ home with rifles and fashioned homemade silencers from a pillow and a milk jug. When the older Williams arrived home and discovered the teens, he grabbed the rifle held by Miner. They began to struggle over it, and McWhorter fired the first shot at Williams, according to a summary of the crime in court filings. Williams was shot a total of 11 times.

April Williams, the victim’s daughter, said her father today should be spending time with his grandchildren and enjoying retirement.

“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him and how I miss him,” April Williams said in a statement read by Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm. “Casey McWhorter had several hours in that house to change his mind from taking the life of my Dad.”

Defense attorneys had unsuccessfully sought a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, citing McWhorter’s age at the time of the crime. They argued the death sentence was unconstitutional because Alabama law does not consider a person to be a legal adult until age 19.

McWhorter, who called himself a “confused kid” at the time of the slaying, said he would encourage young people going through difficult times to take a moment before making a life-altering mistake like he did.

“Anything that comes across them that just doesn’t sit well at first, take a few seconds to think that through,” he told The Associated Press in an interview last week. “Because one bad choice, one stupid mistake, one dumb decision can alter your life — and those that you care about — forever.” McWhorter maintained that he did not intend to kill Williams. Attorney General Steve Marshall said as Williams was on the ground wounded that McWhorter shot him in the head.

McWhorter spent nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row, making him among the longest-serving inmates of the state’s 165 death row inmates.

“Edward Lee Williams’ life was taken away from him at the hands of Casey A. McWhorter, and tonight, Mr. McWhorter answered for his actions,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.

The Rev. Jeff Hood, a death row minister who works with an anti-death penalty group, accompanied McWhorter into the execution chamber as his spiritual adviser. “It is not lost on me that he was a murderer and so are all Alabamians tonight. I pray that we will all learn to stop killing each other,” Hood said in a statement.

The Alabama execution occurred the same night that Texas executed a man convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl who was taken from a Walmart store nearly 22 years ago.

McWhorter was the second inmate put to death this year in Alabama after the state paused executions for several months to review procedures following a series of failed or problematic executions. James Barber, 64, was executed by lethal injection in July for the 2001 beating death of a woman.

Alabama plans in January to make the nation’s first attempt to put an inmate to death using nitrogen gas. Nitrogen hypoxia has been authorized as an execution method in Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi, but no state has used it.

https://apnews.com/article/alabama-death-penalty-lethal-injection-a491821db2a2a29e4e208ca127c071c7

David Renteria Execution Scheduled 11/16/23

David Renteria is scheduled to be executed by the State of Texas for the kidnapping and murder of five year old Alexandra Flores

According to court documents David Renteria would kidnap Alexandra Flores from a Walmart. The little girl’s nude body which had been badly burned would be found the next day in an alley sixteen miles away

David Renteria would be tied to the kidnapping and murder by DNA. Renteria attempted to tell the jury at his trial he was forced by a gang to kidnap Alexandra Flores and that the gang murdered the little girl

David Renteria would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

David Renteria execution is scheduled for later tonight, November 16 2023

David Renteria was executed by lethal injection on November 16 2023

David Renteria Case

A Texas inmate convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl taken from an El Paso store and then burning her body nearly 22 years ago is scheduled for execution Thursday evening.

David Renteria, 53, was condemned for the November 2001 death of Alexandra Flores. Prosecutors said that Alexandra was Christmas shopping with her family at a Walmart store when she was abducted by Renteria. Her body was found the next day in an alley 16 miles from the store.

Renteria has long claimed that members of the Barrio Azteca gang, including one named “Flaco,” forced him to take the girl by making threats to his family — and that it was the gang members who killed her.

Authorities say Renteria’s lawyers did not raise this defense at his trial and evidence in the case shows that he committed the abduction and killing alone. Prosecutors said that blood found in Renteria’s van matched the slain girl’s DNA. His palm print was found on a plastic bag that was put over her head before her body was set on fire. Prosecutors said Renteria was a convicted sex offender on probation at the time of the killing.

Renteria’s scheduled execution is one of two set to be carried out in the U.S. on Thursday. In Alabama, Casey McWhorter is set to receive a lethal injection for fatally shooting a man during a 1993 robbery.

Attorneys for Renteria have filed unsuccessful appeals asking state and federal courts to halt the execution, which is set take place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. A final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was expected after appeals to a lower court concluded.

Renteria’s lawyers argue they have been denied access to the prosecution’s file on Renteria, which they argued violates his constitutional rights. His legal team said the prosecution hindered their ability to investigate Renteria’s claims that gang members were responsible for the girl’s death.

The claims by Renteria’s lawyers are based on witness statements released by El Paso police in 2018 and 2020 in which a woman told investigators that her ex-husband, a Barrio Azteca member, was involved in the death of a girl who had gone missing from a Walmart.

Renteria “will be executed despite recently uncovered evidence of actual innocence, evidence that he is innocent of the death penalty,” Tivon Schardl, one of the defense lawyers, said in court documents.

A federal judge in 2018 said that the woman’s statement was “fraught with inaccuracies” and was “insufficient to show Renteria’s innocence.”

In August, state District Judge Monique Reyes in El Paso granted a request to stay the execution and ordered prosecutors to turn over their files in the case.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Reyes’ orders.

On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against commuting Renteria’s death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granting a six-month reprieve.

Renteria was accused of patrolling the store for about 40 minutes before zeroing in on the 5-year-old girl, the youngest of eight children in her family. The grainy surveillance video showed her following Renteria out of the store.

In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out Renteria’s death sentence, saying prosecutors provided misleading evidence that gave jurors the impression Renteria was not remorseful. Renteria’s lawyers had argued that a statement he made to police after his arrest — in which he expressed sympathy for the girl’s family and that her death was “a tragedy that should never have happened” — was an expression of remorse. The appeals court said Renteria’s expression of remorse was “made in the context of minimizing his responsibility for the offense.”

During a new resentencing trial in 2008, Renteria was again sentenced to death.

David Renteria would be the eighth inmate in Texas to be put to death this year. If Renteria and McWhorter both receive a lethal injection Thursday, there would be 23 executions this year in the U.S.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/execution-looms-tx-death-row-inmate-abduction-murder-2001

David Renteria Execution

A Texas man convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl who was taken from a Walmart store nearly 22 years ago and burning her body was executed Thursday evening.

David Renteria, 53, was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. CST following an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the killing of Alexandra Flores. Renteria prayed, sang and asked for forgiveness before his execution.

“I’m sorry for all the wrongs I have done. And for those who have called for my death, who are about to murder me, I forgive you,” he told those present in a loud, clear voice. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later after receiving a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a powerful sedativ

Renteria sang a hymn in Spanish, then prayed with a spiritual adviser standing next to him, and sang another hymn in English after witnesses, including relatives of his victim, entered the death chamber and watched through a window a few feet (meters) from him.

“There is not a day that goes by that I do not think about the fateful events of that day and what transpired,” he said, looking at his victim’s relatives. “There are no words to describe what you’re going through, and I understand that.”

He told his sister and a friend, watching through another window, that he was “good … strong.”

“I love you all, I truly do. I’ll see you in the next life.”

He then began reciting The Lord’s Prayer as the drugs began flowing. “Our father, who art in heaven” is as far as he got. “I taste it,” he said of the drug, mumbled something, took two loud breaths and snored twice before all movement stopped

Ignacio and Sandra Frausto held a photo collage of their slain sister, the baby among eight children in their family, while speaking with reporters after they had watched Renteria die.

“I want to recognize her, not forget about her,” Ignacio Frausto said through sobs. “It took 22 years but the time came. It is done. We can finally and really begin to heal — 22 years of wondering what was going to happen.”

Prosecutors said Flores was at the El Paso store on Nov. 18, 2001, during a Christmas shopping outing when she was abducted from the store, strangled and her body set on fire. The body was found the next day in an alley some 16 miles (25 kilometers) away.

Renteria’s execution proceeded after the U.S. Supreme Court declined two separate defense requests for a stay earlier in the day.

One request stemmed from efforts by Renteria’s attorneys to gain access to evidence they said could have shown he was not responsible for her death. Another appeal rejected by the high court without comment late Thursday focused on claims the state’s supply of pentobarbital, the execution drug, had degraded and would cause him “terror” and “severe pain” in violation of the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Authorities said evidence showed David Renteria, a convicted sex offender, carried out the abduction and killing alone and that his lawyers did not raise that defense at his trial. Blood found in Renteria’s van matched the slain girl’s DNA, according to prosecutors, who added that his palm print was found on a plastic bag put over the girl’s head before her body was set on fire.

David Renteria was accused of patrolling the store for about 40 minutes before zeroing in on the 5-year-old girl. Grainy surveillance video showed her following Renteria out of the store.

The execution was one of two carried out Thursday in the United States. In Alabama, inmate Casey McWhorter received a lethal injection Thursday evening for a murder conviction in the fatal shooting of a man during a 1993 robbery.

David Renteria had long claimed that members of a gang called Barrio Azteca, including a person using the nickname “Flaco,” forced him to take the girl by making threats to his family — and that it was the gang members who killed her.

In August, state District Judge Monique Reyes in El Paso granted a request to stay the execution and ordered prosecutors to turn over their files in the case. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Reyes’ orders.

In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out Renteria’s death sentence, saying prosecutors provided misleading evidence that gave jurors the impression Renteria was not remorseful.

During a new resentencing trial in 2008, David Renteria was again sentenced to death.

David Renteria was the eighth inmate in Texas put to death this year. There have been 23 executions in the U.S. this year, including the two carried out on Thursday.

https://apnews.com/article/texas-execution-el-paso-5b4d2f1a66e3050dcecfd2fd10e546f3