Brandon Council is on Federal Death Row for the murders of two bank employees during a robbery. According to court documents Brandon Council would enter the bank and demand money before shooting two CresCom Bank employees in Conway South Carolina. Brandon Council would leave the bank with $15,000 however he was arrested two days later. As of 2021 Brandon Council is still on Federal Death Row
The jury has decided the fate of Brandon Council, who robbed a bank and killed two women in Conway back in 2017.
A jury convicted him last Tuesday of killing 59-year-old Donna Major and 36-year-old Katie Skeen on August 21, 2017, during a robbery at CresCom Bank in Conway. The two women were longtime employees of the bank. Their deaths impacted many in the community.
The jury deliberated for five hours total before delivering the death sentence, and the verdict came in at 10:16 a.m. Thursday.
“It was an event that certainly ripped at the fabric of our city because we are very peaceful,” Conway Police Chief Dale Long said after the sentence was read. “The events that happened that day as you see evidenced in court today is nothing that’s going to hold us back. The final verdict is that good has overcome evil.”
Council got away with about $15,000 from the bank before being caught two days later in Greenville, North Carolina.
Before reading the sentence, the judge reviewed more than 100 aggregation and mitigation votes the jury took in deciding to go with the death penalty.
Jurors considered Council’s broken family life more heavily than his history of drug use and emotional issues. Many jurors paid close attention to Council’s relationship with his mother and grandmother.
They also put weight behind his time spent at a behavioral institution, which defense attorneys argued subjected him to abuse by staff members.
They were less sympathetic to Council’s behavior during the trial or his quick confession to police.
Despite handing down the death penalty, 10 jurors responded affirmatively to the phrase “all life has value.”
U.S. Attorney Nathan Williams presented closing arguments on behalf of the government. He reminded the jury about the lives of Major and Skeen.
“I worry as I stand here that when you go back in the jury room, you forget Donna and Katie, ” said Williams.
Williams told jurors they should consider Council intentionally killed the woman and has shown no remorse for his actions.
Attorney Duane Bryant presented closing arguments on behalf of the defense.
He reminded jurors of Council’s hard life growing up and losing his grandmother, who raised him when he was 11-years old.
“You have the right to say for me, I hear what you’re saying to the right. I hear what you’re saying to the left. But for me, I’m going to put him in prison for the rest of his natural life,” said Bryant.
Carlos Caro was sentenced to death by the Federal Government for the murder of a fellow inmate at a Federal Institute in Virginia. According to court documents Carlos Caro was a member of the Texas Syndicate prison gang and guards would find his cellmate dead in his cell with a towel tied around his throat. Carlos Caro was the only other person in the cell. Carlos Caro is still on Federal Death Row as of 2021
At about 6:40 p.m. on December 17, 2003, a prison guard discovered inmate Roberto Sandoval strangled to death inside his cell in the Special Housing Unit (the “SHU”) at United States Penitentiary Lee (“USP Lee”) in Jonesville, Virginia. He lay dead with a towel knotted around his neck. His cellmate Caro had been the only other person inside the locked cell. Caro later explained, “[Sandoval] called me mother fucker, that whore, that’s why I fucked him up.” J.A. 781.
A.
Caro comes from a poor neighborhood in Falfurrias, Texas, where he lived with his siblings and an abusive, alcoholic father. While still young, Caro began helping his uncles transport illegal drugs into the United States. He was later convicted of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in April 1988, conspiracy to possess over one hundred kilograms of marijuana with intent to distribute in January 1994, and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in November 2001.1 Following his third conviction, Caro was sentenced to thirty years imprisonment.
In prison, Caro became a leader in the Texas Syndicate, a violent prison gang. In that role, Caro was involved in two violent incidents prior to Sandoval’s murder. In the summer of 2002 at Federal Correctional Institute Oakdale (“FCI Oakdale”), a prison official asked Caro to maintain the peace because members of another gang were scheduled to arrive. Caro responded that “the Texas Syndicate were going to do what they had to do.” J.A. 908. Soon after, Caro and fellow Texas Syndicate members violently attacked the new arrivals. Taking responsibility, Caro commented: “I don’t give a fuck if they send me to the United States Penitentiary. My brothers follow orders. They know what they’re getting into. It doesn’t even matter if we’re prosecuted. I have 30 years to do. I certainly don’t care about myself.” J.A. 911.
Following the FCI Oakdale incident, the Bureau of Prisons (the “BOP”) transferred Caro to USP Lee, a more secure facility. There, in August 2003, Caro and another inmate violently attacked fellow Texas Syndicate member Ricardo Benavidez. Using “shanks,” i.e., homemade knives, they stabbed Benavidez twenty-nine times. Five other Texas Syndicate members stood nearby with identical shanks.2 In November 2003, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit homicide, Caro was sentenced to another twenty-seven years imprisonment. He was then transferred to the SHU at USP Lee.
Sandoval’s murder occurred only weeks later. Sandoval was placed in Caro’s cell at around 9:00 p.m. on December 16, 2003. The next day, Sandoval and Caro were served breakfast in their cell at 6:10 a.m. They later took one hour of recreation outside and were last observed by prison staff at 6:17 p.m.3 Soon after, inmate Sean Bullock, whose cell faced Caro’s, noticed Caro standing behind Sandoval and apparently choking him. Bullock watched them fall to the ground and assumed they were tussling. At about 6:40 p.m., a prison guard came to deliver mail. Caro yelled to him several times, “Come get this piece of shit out of here,” and pointed at Sandoval lying by the door. J.A. 676. Peering inside the cell, the guard observed Sandoval lying motionless with blood on him and a towel knotted around his neck. Blood was also splattered against the wall.
Other guards quickly arrived and handcuffed Caro. When asked whether Sandoval was still breathing, Caro responded: “No. At this time he’s stinking up the room, get him out.” J.A. 684. Caro later received Miranda warnings and was interviewed. He denied that Sandoval’s murder had any connection to the Texas Syndicate. Instead, Caro explained that he had eaten Sandoval’s breakfast that morning; that Sandoval had awakened, cursed him, and threatened to eat Caro’s breakfast the next morning; and that Caro, using a towel tied with one overhand knot, had later strangled Sandoval for four or five minutes until he stopped breathing.
The next day Caro taunted a prison guard, grinning and calling out, “When [are] you ․ going [to] assign [me] a new cellie?” J.A. 601. Several days later, again grinning, Caro requested fellow inmate Ortiz for his next “cellie.” J.A. 680.
Caro later mentioned Sandoval in two telephone conversations and a letter. The letter stated, “I killed a guy two weeks ago ․ [f]or being a fool.” J.A. 790. Caro told his wife, laughing, “[Sandoval] called me a mother fucker.” J.A. 782. Caro also assured her, “But I’m all right.” J.A. 783. Finally, Caro told another Texas Syndicate member Roel Rivas, “I also have a death,” and explained, “It’s because they gave me a cell mate and he disrespected me, so I took him down.” J.A. 785. When Rivas proposed claiming self-defense, Caro said, “That is what I’m going to do․ That is what I’m going for.” J.A. 786-87.
Meier Brown was sentenced to death for the murder of a United States postal worker. According to court documents Meier Brown walked into a postal office and demanded money orders, when the worker hesitated Brown would fatally stabbed the worker. Meier Brown as of 2021 is currently on Federal Death Row
On direct appeal, we offered a detailed description of the facts of this tragic case based on the trial testimony and the last of Brown’s three confessions, which was presented to the jury by audiotape. See Brown, 441 F.3d at 1337–38. The murder occurred during the course of a robbery of $1,175 in money orders at a Fleming, Georgia post office. As the robbery unfolded, Brown stabbed postmistress Sallie Gaglia ten times, while she tried to defend herself, and left her to die, alone and lying face down, on the floor.
Eyewitness and physical evidence led police to suspect Brown, who finally confessed to Sallie Gaglia’s murder. In an interview conducted by Postal Inspector James Rushwin and Liberty County Sheriff’s Department Detective Charles Woodall, Brown admitted that he had gone to the Fleming post office on the morning of November 30, 2002 to retrieve his family’s mail from a post office box. Brown went home to distribute the mail. After telling police several different versions of what happened, Brown confessed that he then returned to the post office with a knife to rob Gaglia. At the post office, Brown asked for three money orders. When Gaglia turned to use an adding machine, Brown put socks on his hands, jumped over the counter, and—according to Brown—tripped, fell into her, and cut her with his knife. He told police that at this point he decided he had to kill Sallie Gaglia because she knew him. Thereafter, Brown grabbed Gaglia’s wallet, crawled through the counter window, discarded the knife and the socks on his hands as he biked home, and threw his clothes into the washing machine. Brown then called his girlfriend, Diane Brown, to pick him up, and he gave her the money orders the next day. Brown was convicted of all three charges: 18 U.S.C. § 1111 (murder within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States); id. § 1114 (murder of a federal employee); and id. § 2114 (robbery of federal property).
Robert Bolden was sentenced to death for the murder of a bank guard in St. Louis Missouri. According to court documents Robert Bolden plan was to disarm the guard and use him as a hostage however the guard resisted and Bolden would shoot and kill him. Robert Bolden, who was born in Canada, was sent to Federal Death Row
In the afternoon of October 7, 2002, Robert Bolden, Dominick Price and Corteze Edwards attempted to rob a Bank of America branch in St. Louis, Missouri. Bolden had concocted a plan for the robbery which he discussed with Price earlier that day. According to the plan, Robert Bolden would use a handgun to disarm the bank’s security guard and then he and Price would hold the guard hostage, get the money, and drive away in Bolden’s car. At some point during the day Bolden recruited Edwards to assist in the robbery.
Robert Bolden, Price, and Edwards drove to a parking lot near the bank and got out of the car. Although Bolden had purchased a nylon stocking cap to conceal his identity, he did not wear a mask. When the security guard, Nathan Ley, came outside, Bolden approached, with Price and Edwards following 15 to 20 feet behind him. Bolden stopped a few feet away from Mr. Ley and the two men exchanged words. Bolden then pointed his handgun at Mr. Ley. A brief struggle ensued after Mr. Ley reached for the gun, but Bolden was able to fire it, shooting Mr. Ley in the jaw. As Mr. Ley fell, Bolden stepped backward and fired another shot, this time into Mr. Ley’s head. Mr. Ley died from the second gunshot.
Bolden, Price, and Edwards fled from the scene. However, several bystanders witnessed the incident and were able to provide a description of Bolden and his vehicle to the police. Also, the police gathered DNA evidence from clothing found at and near the scene that they linked to Bolden and his accomplices. Robert Bolden was arrested that evening.
Robert Bolden, a Canadian who’s been on death row in the United States since 2006, has died of natural causes.(november 2021)
Bolden, 58, was one of just two Canadians facing execution in the United States. The other, Ronald Allen Smith, an Albertan, is on state death row in Montana.
Bolden had been fighting to have his death sentence overturned; his last court hearing came just days before his death at a medical prison in Springfield, Mo., in September. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons says he died of natural causes.
In October 2002, Bolden shot and killed a bank guard, Nathan Ley, during a botched robbery in St. Louis, Mo. Four years later, on Aug. 25, 2006, Bolden was sentenced to death.
A statement from Ley’s family remembered him as “kind, funny, responsible, and hard-working.”
“We were fortunate that his killer was brought to justice. Too many families are not so fortunate,” the statement, released via the Bureau of Prisons, said.
In his early life — and in his later years — Bolden battled numerous health problems. For much of his younger life, he suffered from poorly controlled diabetes; by the last few years of his life, Bolden had stage-four kidney disease, was losing his vision and had considerable mental-health challenges, according to court documents.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons did not respond to the National Post’s request for more information about the cause of death.
The case represented a uniquely strange one for Canada, because for many years during Bolden’s legal battles, the Canadian government was unaware that a Canadian was facing execution abroad.
The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, of which the United States is a signatory, obliges a nation to allow those under arrest to contact their consulate for assistance.
Bolden did not have this chance. And the Canadian government didn’t find out a Canadian citizen was on death row until 2012 — six years after he’d been sentenced.
This was a crucial aspect of Bolden’s fight to avoid death, in which his lawyer, Jennifer Merrigan, argued Bolden’s trial lawyers failed by not contacting the Canadian government.
“They knew that it was their responsibility to contact a foreign government … and then they failed to contact Canada without ever having learned how Canada could’ve assisted,” said Merrigan at the final court hearing in September.
Merrigan did not respond to the National Post’s request for comment. Nor did the Canadian government.
Robert Bolden was born in Stephenville, a town south of Corner Brook, on the west coast of Newfoundland, in 1963. His mother, Stella Decker, was a prostitute, his father, believed to be a U.S. serviceman named Curtis Roberts, was never a part of his life.
Rather, Bolden grew up with Lavale Bolden, another U.S. soldier, as his father. For Robert Bolden, his home life was one of “domestic violence, alcoholism and addiction,” with Lavale Bolden, a heroin addict, and Stella Decker, an alcoholic, fighting constantly.
Robert Bolden developed his own addictions, and he “spent a lot of his time in the basement … smoking crack, drinking alcohol, and huffing turpentine when alcohol and crack were not available,” says a psychiatrist’s report contained in court documents
Still, court documents painted Bolden as a dedicated father; his daughter, Ariel Bolden, described him as “really wonderful,” according to a court transcript.
“He did a lot of stuff with us and our friends. He used to take us to the movies. He used to collect Pokemon cards with us. He used to take us swimming; took us to Six Flags when his job went to Six Flags and a lot of stuff like that,” she said.
His son, Robert Bolden, said his dad took him fishing. They used to play basketball and video games together, and he was always pushing his children to get good grades in school, the son said.
“He was a really big influence in school to me. That’s why I wanted to stay in school, because of him. I wanted to do as best I can in school so I can make him proud,” his son said.
Anthony Battle was a prisoner at the Atlanta Federal Prison when he murdered a prison guard. According to court documents Anthony Battle who at the time was serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife became upset with the prison guard. Anthony would grab a ball peen hammer from a prison maintenance worker and would strike the guard several times in the head causing his death. Anthony Battle would be convicted and sent to Federal Death Row
In 1987, Anthony Battle entered the Marine base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and sexually assaulted and murdered his wife, a serving Marine. He was convicted of first-degree felony murder in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1111(a), aggravated sexual abuse in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a), and second-degree murder in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1111. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Anthony Battle was moved around some and eventually transferred to the United States Penitentiary-Atlanta (“USP-A”) in 1993. On 21 December 1994, a correctional officer at USP-A, D’Antonio Washington, was found lying on the floor in Cellhouse C with blood spurting out of his head. When prison employees rushed to the scene, they found Battle standing next to a nearby vending machine. His clothing was splattered with blood. A hammer with fresh blood, which was later determined to be Officer Washington’s blood, was found behind the vending machine. Richard Boone, an inmate allowed to carry tools, had loaned the hammer to Anthony Battle to fix something in his cell. (Medical examiners later testified that Officer Washington was felled by three great blows to the head with a hammer.)
On the day of Washington’s death, Anthony Battle made an incriminating statement, which was eventually suppressed; but he later confessed again to a correctional officer. Later, federal agents interrogated Battle; and he told them he was “frustrated” at USP-A and that he was “tired of being bossed around.” Battle said that he took the hammer and decided to attack the first correctional officer he saw. Battle was charged with Officer Washington’s murder.
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