Death Row Inmates | My Crime Library

Edward Fields Federal Death Row

Edward Fields is a former prison guard who was sentenced to death for the murders of two people on Federal land. According to court documents Edward Fields dressed up in camouflage and stalked the married couple from Texas for three days before shooting and killing the couple. Due to the murders taking place on Federal land he was prosecuted by a Federal Prosecutor. As of 2021 Edward Fields is on Federal Death Row

Federal Death Row Inmate List

Edward Fields 2021 Information

Register Number: 04136-063
Age:	53
Race:	White
Sex:	Male
Located at: Terre Haute USP
Release Date: DEATH SENT

Edward Fields More News

Former state prison guard Edward Leon Fields Jr. pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to killing a Texas couple at their Ouachita National Forest campsite in 2003.

Despite the plea, Fields still faces the death penalty, said U.S. Attorney Sheldon Sperling. Potential jurors will go to the U.S. Eastern District Courthouse on Tuesday to complete the case’s second phase, a sentencing trial.

Two years after dressing in a camouflage suit to spy on a husband and wife for three days before gunning them down, Fields, wearing a standard-issue orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg irons, slowly shuffled toward U.S. District Judge Ronald A. White.

Reading from a prepared statement of guilt in a steady, expressionless monotone, Fields admitted to killing the avid campers July 10, 2003, in order to rob them and take items from their LeFlore County campsite.

“I know I’ve caused great harm and sorrow to many . . . I’m sorry for what I have done,” said Fields, 38, who shot Charles Chick, 47, and Shirley Chick, 50, each in the head several times at the Winding Stair Mountain campgrounds near Talimena Drive.

When the judge pressed Julia O’Connell, assistant federal public defender, on the issue of whether she would elicit medical expert testimony regarding her client’s mental health during the sentencing phase, she said, “Yes, I can confirm that.”

The judge questioned Fields about his current mental health. Fields said he is being treated for depression, as he had been for a couple of decades.

White asked Fields if he still “hears voices in his head,” and Fields said he no longer did, noting that medications including Lithium and Prozac “have cleared up my buzz.”

Fields pleaded guilty to all six counts he faced, including robbery and auto burglary.

The maximum punishment on each of the other four counts — two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of using a firearm in a federal crime of violence causing the death of a person — is the death penalty and a fine of $250,000.

The sentencing trial will be the first federal death penalty trial in the Eastern District since 1993, which Sperling also prosecuted.

Sperling asked the judge to question Fields as to why he changed his plea. O’Connell objected, saying “the choice is his,” and White ultimately denied the prosecutor’s request.

Fields previously confessed the crimes to authorities. He did not know his victims.

The Chicks’ bodies were found the day after they were shot, shattering the peaceful nature of the 1.8 million-acre forest that stretches from LeFlore County to several counties in western Arkansas.

The campground is a wooded mountaintop area, secluded and quiet, save for occasional motorists who get out of their cars on nearby Talimena Drive to admire the pristine views from the scenic byway, perhaps Oklahoma’s most popular destination spot for fall foliage tours.

Fields apparently had been living in the forest’s campsites for days leading up to the slayings, according to court records, after a woman with whom he’d lived kicked him out of the residence.

After Fields reportedly told a friend that he had watched a camp couple, then sneaked up on them and “done something real bad,” the woman, who apparently witnessed Fields constructing what he called a “sniper suit,” notified authorities.

Fields was arrested after investigators found a .22-caliber rifle, scope, camouflage suit and items reportedly belonging to the Chicks in his truck.

Fields worked for the state Department of Corrections for four years in the 1990s. He was a guard at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester from 1995 to 1996.

He then moved to the Hamilton Correctional Center in Hodgen as a food-service supervisor and a guard before resigning from the DOC in 1999

https://tulsaworld.com/archive/former-state-prison-guard-admits-killing-texas-couple/article_0673ca6e-9083-5273-ad65-6b25e58616a6.html

Joseph Ebron Federal Death Row

Joseph Ebron was sentenced to death by the Federal Government for the murder of a fellow inmate at the Beaumont Prison in Texas. According to court documents the prison murder was the third person that Joseph Ebron has committed the first being when he was just fifteen years old and the second when he was seventeen. Joseph Ebron was serving a life sentence when he would help another inmate, Marwin Mosley, murder the inmate who was stabbed one hundred six times. Due to Joseph Ebron past criminal activities it did not take the jury long to find him guilty and sentence him to death.

Joseph Ebron 2021 Information

Register Number: 08655-007
Age:	42
Race:	Black
Sex:	Male
Located at: Terre Haute USP
Release Date: DEATH SENT

Joseph Ebron More News

Jurors sentenced a Washington, D.C., man to death Monday for the murder of a fellow inmate at the federal prison in Beaumont.

Joseph Ebron, 30, was found guilty of helping with the May 7, 2005, stabbing death of Keith Barnes. It was the third murder Ebron’s has been convicted of in the last 15 years.

Ebron reacted violently to the announcement, according to federal prosecutors Joeseph Batte and John Craft, leaping to his feet, screaming obscenities and tossing a water pitcher in Batte’s direction before he was tackled by U.S. marshals.

No one was struck by the pitcher, Batte said.

Batte told the Beaumont Enterprise that Ebron’s two prior murder convictions, the first of which was committed when he was 15, likely contributed to the jury’s decision to impose the death penalty. Ebron committed the second murder in 1997 when he was 17, jurors heard, only a few months after being released from a Colorado youth correctional facility and returning to Washington, D.C.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s been a fire burning in Joseph Ebron since he was 15 years old, a fire that’s continued to burn throughout his adult life up to 2005, and I’d submit to you it is still burning,” Batte told jurors in his closing argument.

In the most recent killing, jurors heard, Ebron restrained Barnes while another inmate, Marwin Mosley, stabbed Barnes in the chest 106 times for reportedly testifying against a mutual associate. Mosley later killed himself in prison, a defense attorney said.

Batte and Craft argued that a death sentence is appropriate, in part, because as long as he is alive Ebron poses a threat to fellow inmates and correctional officers.

Katherine Scardino, one of the two Houston-based attorneys who defended Ebron, said that Ebron should be assigned an attorney to work on an appeal soon.

“There were a couple of points we felt like that were an issue for an appellate lawyer,” Scardino said

Scardino and Phillips submitted 35 mitigating factors for jurors to consider, many related to Ebron’s difficult childhood.

Ebron’s biological mother abandoned his family when he was 6 months old, jurors heard, and his father was coping with a heroin addiction while not in prison, providing little emotional support. The southeast Washington, D.C., neighborhood he grew up in is a high-crime area, an environment that interfered with his moral development. Since he was 15, Ebron’s attorneys noted, he has spent most of his life behind bars.

“This is Joseph Ebron’s world, but Joseph Ebron is going to live or die based on a world he’s never had a chance to live in, our world,” Phillips said in his closing. “But we must judge it by our rules.”

Ebron’s attorneys argued that he did not take a lead role in deciding to kill Barnes, but was instead brought into a plan already in place hours before it was executed. If Mosley and the other co-conspirators had not run into Ebron in the recreation yard that day, Barnes still would have been killed, Phillips argued, without Ebron’s participation.

Allowing him to live, prosecutors argued, would send the message to other prisoners that they can get away with murder.

“That fire that has been burning still is, and now it’s the time for you to put it out,” Batte told jurors at the end of his closing argument.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Man-condemned-for-killing-fellow-inmate-1741090.php

Joseph Duncan Federal Death Row

Joseph Duncan is a serial killer who was sentenced to death by the Federal Government. According to court documents Joseph Duncan was responsible for three murders in Idaho Brenda Groene, 40; her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, 37; and her son, Slade Groene, 13, and the two younger children were missing. Seven weeks later a witness saw one of the children with an unidentified man and called the police. Police would arrest Joseph Duncan and identify Shasta Groene, 8, but her brother Dylan was still missing. Unfortunately the remains of Dylan Groene would be found in Montana months later. Joseph Duncan was also responsible for the murders of ten year old Anthony Martinez and Sammiejo White, 11, and her half-sister, Carmen Cubias, 9.

Joseph Duncan would be convicted of seven murders and would be sentenced to death. In 2021 it was announced that Joseph Duncan has brain cancer and his prognosis is six to twelve months meaning he will die from cancer and not lethal injection. Joseph Duncan died on March 28 2021

Federal Death Row Inmate List

Joseph Duncan 2021 Information

Register Number: 12561-023
Age:	58
Race:	White
Sex:	Male
Located at: Terre Haute USP
Release Date: DEATH SENT

Joseph Duncan More News

Convicted child killer Joseph Duncan has terminal brain cancer and will likely die before his federal death sentence is carried out, according to court documents.

Duncan was convicted of killing four members of a family from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 2005. He kidnapped two children, Dylan and Shasta Groene, from the family’s home and tortured them in Montana before killing the boy.

Shasta Groene was the only survivor of the rampage and was rescued when Duncan stopped at a restaurant in Coeur d’Alene and the girl was recognized by the staff.

Duncan was also linked by DNA to the murder of a 10-year old boy in California. He was convicted of that crime after he was convicted of the Idaho murders and kidnappings.

Though he was never charged in the case, authorities have said Duncan also confessed to the slayings of Carmen Cubias, 9 and her half sister Sammiejo White, 11. The girls were abducted from Seattle in July 1996 and their remains were found in an empty field in Bothell in February 1998.

KXLY-TV reports Duncan, who is from Tacoma, has been on federal death row in Indiana for years as his appeals move forward.

In court filings earlier this year, attorneys disclosed that Duncan underwent brain surgery last October and was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a brain cancer, at stage IV. According to court records, he has declined chemotherapy and radiation.

“In November 2020, Bureau of Prisons medical staff determined his life expectancy to be 6-12 months…. medical staff discussed end-of-life preparations with Mr. Duncan,” according to court documents.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/convicted-killer-joseph-duncan-has-terminal-brain-cancer/

Joseph Duncan Death

Nearly 16 years after he terrorized North Idaho and murdered several members of a Coeur d’Alene family, convicted killer Joseph Duncan is dead.

Duncan’s attorneys disclosed late last year that he had terminal brain cancer and did not have much longer to live.

He died at just after 2:30 am pacific time at a hospital in Indiana. He was on federal death row at a prison in Terre Haute.

He was convicted of killing Brenda Groene, Slade Groene, Dylan Groene and Mark McKenzie; he murdered the family in order to kidnap Dylan and his sister Shasta. He held the children captive for several weeks in Montana before returning Shasta to a Coeur d’Alene Denny’s.

After his arrest, DNA linked him to the murder of 10-year old Anthony Martinez in California. Martinez was murdered in 1997 while Duncan was on parole for a rape charge in Washington. He was kidnapped while playing outside of his home, his body was found 15 days later. It wasn’t until after Duncan’s arrest in Idaho that he was linked to the crime.

He’s also been linked to the murders of two young girls in Seattle in the 1990s.

After his release from prison, he moved to Fargo and was attending college. Shortly before graduating in 2005, he was accused of molesting a young boy on a playground in Minnesota. He posted a low bail and skipped town. He was driving to Washington where his family lived when he said he spotted the Groene children playing outside their home along Interstate 90. He hatched a scheme then to kidnap the children, buying night vision goggles and stalking the family.

He videotaped many of his horrific crimes against the Groene children. One veteran investigator said the video “shook him to his core.”

Duncan said early on that he would not appeal his death sentence, but an appeal in his case has been going forward.

“The sun is a little brighter today,” said Anthony Martinez’s mother, Diana. “My soul is lighter. The world is a more beautiful place without the evil that is Joseph Duncan. God chose to make his end a long suffering and I believe that is fitting. The horror of his thoughts consumed him.”

Anthony would have been 34.

Anthony’s father Ernesto said “While I would’ve liked to witness his execution, knowing he is now standing before God being held accountable for what he has done, what he did to my son, and the horrible crimes he committed to others, that is the real justice.”

“God has brought pure justice for all those Joseph Duncan has hurt,” said Anthony’s younger brother Marcos. “There is less evil in the world. Nothing can bring my brother back, but now Duncan can never hurt anyone again. Because of him, I will spend the rest of my life doing everything I can to fight against any evil left in the world.”

https://www.kxly.com/the-sun-is-a-little-brighter-today-serial-killer-joseph-duncan-is-dead/

Len Davis Federal Death Row

Len Davis was a former New Orleans police officer who was sentenced to death for arranging the murder of a witness set to testify against him. According to court documents Len Davis was under investigation by the Internal Affairs for the murder of a young man who he thought was a witness to an officer involved shooting. When Len Davis learned that someone had witnessed the murder he conspired with another man to murder the witness, Kim Groves. Len Dias was convicted on both murders and sentenced to death. The death sentence became Federal due to being found guilty of two Federal Civil Rights charges. Len Davis remains on Federal Death Row

Federal Death Row Inmate List

Len Davis 2021 Information

Register Number: 24325-034
Age:	56
Race:	Black
Sex:	Male
Located at: Terre Haute USP
Release Date: DEATH SENT

Len Davis More News

A federal appeals court on Friday turned down a request for a new hearing from a former New Orleans police officer facing execution after orchestrating the 1994 murder of a woman who filed a brutality case against him.

In theory, Len Davis finds himself one step closer to receiving the federal death penalty which was handed to him following his conviction in the killing of Kim Groves. But he can appeal Friday’s decision from a three-judge panel to the full federal 5th Circuit and then to the U.S. Supreme Court, meaning it could be years before his case concludes.

U.S. Circuit Judges Priscilla Owen, Don Willett and Andrew Oldham rejected arguments that the question of Davis’ guilt deserved to be revisited because the government withheld key exculpatory evidence, jurors were biased, and he did not have competent legal representation at his trial.

An attorney for Davis, Sarah Ottinger, said Saturday that she and her client are exploring their legal options going forward.

Groves’ slaying marked the nadir for the reputation of the New Orleans Police Department, which that year stood watch over a city that registered its all-time in high in killings: 424.

Federal agents at the time were investigating Davis because they suspected he and other officers had been paid to protect drug dealers. Amid that probe, Groves went to NOPD’s internal affairs division and reported having seen Davis pistol-whip a teenager.

Within a day, Davis had been tipped off about the complaint and arranged for drug dealer Paul Hardy to execute Groves roughly a block away from her home in the Lower 9th Ward. The plot to murder Groves was captured on FBI phone taps meant to expose the protection racket to which Davis had been linked, but agents were unable to prevent Hardy from killing the mother of three.

Davis and Hardy each received death sentences after they were convicted in 1996 of violating Groves’ civil rights. A third man linked to the killing, Damon Causey, received a life sentence after being convicted of hiding the handgun used to murder Groves.

Hardy’s capital punishment was vacated after U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan deemed him intellectually disabled. Davis’ initial death sentence had also been vacated at one point. But he received a second death sentence in 2005.

Davis, now 56, has since exhausted his appeals and is now undergoing the complex post-conviction appellate process.

The latest twist in Davis’ case comes a little more than a month after the federal Bureau of Prisons executed three federal prisoners. The carrying out of those death sentences followed a decision from President Donald Trump’s administration to end a 17-year hiatus of federal executions.

Ottinger said she was concerned that prosecutors’ insistence on carrying out the death penalty on Davis meant her client, who is Black, stood to become “the only person ever killed by the government under Reconstruction era civil rights statutes enacted to protect Black people from brutality perpetrated by White police.”

Ottinger added, “It is in the case involving the Black police officer that the government persists in seeking the ultimate punishment of death.”

The city of New Orleans in 2018 agreed to pay Groves’ children $1.5 million to settle a civil lawsuit her family filed following the killing. Groves’ family at one point had asked President George W. Bush’s administration to halt its efforts to execute Davis so that the criminal case wouldn’t drag out any longer.

https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/article_24407022-e4b0-11ea-9a55-5b447b6b68ec.html

Christopher Cramer Federal Death Row

Christopher Cramer and Ricky Fackrell were sentenced to death for the murder of a fellow inmate at the Beaumont Prison in Texas. According to court documents Christopher Cramer and Ricky Fackrell as well as the victim Leo Johns were all members of the prison gang Soldiers Of The Aryan Culture. For whatever the reason Leo Johns fell out of favor with the group and was fatally stabbed by Cramer and Fackrell. Both men remain on Federal Death Row

Federal Death Row Inmate List

Christopher Cramer 2021 Information

Register Number: 10422-081
Age:	38
Race:	White
Sex:	Male
Located at: Terre Haute USP
Release Date: DEATH SENT

Ricky Fackrell 2021 Information

Register Number: 12324-081
Age:	37
Race:	White
Sex:	Male
Located at: Terre Haute USP
Release Date: DEATH SENT

Christopher Cramer More News

Two federal inmates convicted of killing another inmate at a Beaumont Prisonin the Eastern District of Texas were sentenced to death today.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown for the Eastern District of Texas made the announcement.

Ricky Fackrell, 34, of Vernal, Utah, and Christopher Cramer, 36, of Ogden, Utah, were indicted by a federal grand jury on March 3, 2016 and charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They were both convicted by a federal jury of murder in the first degree on May 9, following a six-day trial before U.S. District Judge Marcia Crone. Today, after about eight hours of deliberation, the jury in Beaumont sentenced both Fackrell and Cramer to death. Judge Crone immediately sentenced the defendants accordingly.

“White supremacists subscribe to a repugnant, hateful ideology and use it to justify criminal activity,” Attorney General Sessions said. “The murder committed in this case was an act of senseless, barbaric violence. Now that the jury has spoken, justice will be done. I want to thank our fabulous prosecutors John Craft, Joseph Batte, and Sonia Jimenez for their hard work. With their help, this Department will continue to prosecute violent criminals with the aggressiveness and relentlessness necessary in cases like these.”

“These defendants had a violent history, and when the murder happens in a prison, it is clear that the defendants are always going to be a danger,” said U.S. Attorney Brown. “This was an appropriate case for the death penalty and we will continue to seek that punishment in the worst cases.”

According to information presented in court, beginning in March 2014, Cramer and Fackrell, inmates of the U.S. Penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas, conspired to murder fellow inmate, Leo Johns. On June 9, 2014, Cramer and Fackrell stabbed Leo Johns to death at the federal prison. All three inmates were members of the white supremacy group, Soldiers of the Aryan Culture.

This case was investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Special Investigative Services. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Craft and Joseph R. Batte of the Eastern District of Texas and Trial Attorney Sonia V. Jimenez of the Justice Department’s Capital Case Section.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/white-supremacists-sentenced-death-murdering-fellow-inmate-texas-prison