Jack Greene was sentenced to death by the State of Arkansas for the murder of a retired pastor. According to court documents Jack Greene was confronted by the retired pastor regarding an arson in the preceding days. Jack Greene would respond to the allegations by bashing his head with the can of hominy, cut him from mouth to ear, and fired a .25 caliber pistol into his chest. Jack Greene would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
Race CAUCASIAN Sex MALE Hair Color BROWN Eye Color HAZEL
Height 71 inches Weight 155 lbs.
Birth Date 03/13/1955
Initial Receipt Date 10/15/1992
Facility Varner Supermax
Jack Greene More News
Four months after Arkansas officials sparked outrage by trying to kill eight inmates in 11 days, the state has set another execution date — this time for a murderer who stabbed, shot and beat a retired minister with a can of hominy but who is, according to his lawyers, too delusional to be put to death.
Jack Greene, 62, is scheduled for a lethal injection on Nov. 9. He has no pending appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case last year.
His attorney said Greene should be exempt from execution under court rulings that hold condemned inmates must be competent enough to understand their punishment.
“The state has taken the next step toward executing a man who suffers from severe mental illness,” Greene’s federal defender, Scott Braden, said Friday after Gov. Asa Hutchinson set the execution date.
“Mr. Greene has long held a fixed delusion that the Arkansas Department of Correction is conspiring with his attorneys to cover up injuries that he believes corrections officers have inflicted upon him. He complains that his spinal cord has been removed and his central nervous system has been destroyed. He believes he will be executed to cover up what he calls these ‘crimes against humanity.'”
Greene was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of retired pastor Sidney Burnett — who had accused him of arson — days after he killed his own brother.
According to court documents, he tied up and gagged the 69-year-old clergyman, bashed his head with the can of hominy, cut him from mouth to ear, and fired a .25 caliber pistol into his chest and head. One judge referred to it as “horrible torture.”
The state argues that Greene was found competent before his trial and sentencing, but the defense says he hasn’t had a proper hearing on his current mental state.
“Mr. Greene’s severe somatic delusions cause him to constantly twist his body and stuff his ear and nose with toilet paper to cope with the pain,” another federal defender, John Williams, said. “By doing so, Mr. Greene frequently causes himself to bleed.”
In 2009, Greene told an Arkansas judge that his “frontal lobe hurts so bad I have to stick my finger in the corner of my eye,” his lawyers said in a brief. Defense experts said he was brain damaged and “psychotic,” while a state doctor has testified that he is not mentally ill or incompetent.
Arkansas set Greene’s execution date soon after obtaining a new batch of execution drugs, paying $250 in cash to an undisclosed supplier. When its previous stockpile was about to expire in the spring, the state tried to stage eight executions at an unprecedented pace.
Ultimately, four inmates were put to death. One of the prisoners who received a temporary reprieve, Jason McGehee, was granted clemency by Hutchinson on Friday. His death sentence for the murder of a 15-year-old boy will be commuted to life in prison.
Nationwide, executions hit a 25-year low last year, suppressed in part by states’ inability to obtain drugs for lethal injections. According to a Pew Research survey, public support for the death penalty has dropped to its lowest level in four decades, although slightly more Americans favor it than oppose it
Don Davis was sentenced to death by the State of Arkansas for the murder of a woman during a robbery. According to court documents Don Davis broke into the victims home and in the process of robbing her would shoot the woman dead. Don Davis would be convicted and sentenced to death.
Arkansas police said Friday a death row inmate whose execution was halted last year was taken to the hospital after prison officials told investigators he had attempted suicide.
An Arkansas State Police spokesman said investigators responded Thursday afternoon to a report of an attempted suicide by convicted murderer Don Davis. State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said Davis, 55, had been taken to an area hospital with unspecified injuries.
“There had been a conversation between Davis and a correctional officer that led to other personnel being summoned to the cell area. As these individuals began to communicate with Davis, he produced what was reported to be a razor blade and he put it to his throat,” Sadler said.
Investigators found a note that was believed to be written by Davis in the inmate’s cell, Sadler said. Sadler said the incident is not being investigated by State Police because the agency doesn’t investigate attempted suicides.
Sadler said Davis had been stabilized at the hospital, but his condition Friday wasn’t immediately clear. The Department of Correction would only confirm that security and medical staff responded to an incident involving Davis. Correction Department spokesman Solomon Graves said Davis was in the custody of the Varner unit, but did not say whether that meant the inmate remained hospitalized. Graves cited state law and department policy limiting what information can be released about inmates.
Davis was convicted in 1992 of killing Jane Daniel after breaking into her Rogers home in 1990 and shooting her with a .44-caliber revolver he found there.
He was one of eight inmates Arkansas planned to execute over an 11-day period last year. His execution and three others were halted by court rulings. Arkansas ultimately put four inmates to death. Arkansas scheduled the executions before its supply of midazolam , a sedative used in the lethal injection process, expired. Arkansas has since found a new supply of midazolam, but is lacking another of the three drugs it uses for executions.
The facts before us are these: Sharon Haley, who with her husband Mike were also victims of a burglary and neighbors of the murder victim, testified that at about 4:15 p.m. on October 12, 1990, she returned home and found that her screen door was taped open and the wooden door between the garage and the kitchen standing open. When she entered the house, she noticed that a hand gun that had previously been on the bed table was gone and that a console television was pulled away from the wall and the wires disconnected. Fearful, she called the 911 emergency number from the garage phone and went to a neighbor’s house.
Once the police arrived, they asked her to take an inventory of her property. She noted the following items missing:several guns and appliances, a videocassette recorder, a large Sharp convection/microwave, a thirteen inch Sharp television set, both of her jewelry boxes, an Amish quilt, an older model Realistic brand stereo component set, her wedding ring, antique locket, a small gold chain, a couple of ladies watches, a Mickey Mouse watch, diamond earrings, a set of sapphire earrings, pearls, pearl earrings, and a couple of costume black onyx earrings; her husband’s two high school class rings and one college rings; a cluster ring with pearls and rubies missing, a couple of silver rings with turquoise stones and a matching silver bracelet; silver herringbone chain; while gold ring with a pink zircon; costume choker; tools from the garage; a crossbow; her husband’s collection of Harley-Davidson t-shirts & leather jacket; Yankee and Penn State t-shirts; special run bottle of Wild Turkey liquor wrapped in a wooden box; and a bottle of Crown Royal.
Mike Haley testified concerning the many firearms and weapons stolen from their home during the burglary. His list included: a 410 shotgun, a .22 rifle, Marlin Model 39-A, with a banner scope, a Ruger M-77 6 mm deer rifle, a Stevens double barrel shotgun, a .44 magnum pistol with a scope and a Winchester Model 50, 20 gauge shotgun. Also missing were a crossbow and crossbow arrows as well as numerous types of ammunition for the firearms.
At about 10:00 p.m., the same day as the Haley burglary, the Haleys’ neighbor, Richard Daniel, returned home from a business *261 trip and noticed the door of his garage into the kitchen hallway was open. As he entered the house, he saw a rice pan and bowl out in the kitchen, and it startled him when he noticed a Kool cigarette butt in the rice bowl (especially since neither he nor his wife smoked). Noting that the storeroom door was ajar, he entered to find his wife, Jane, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. She was lying with her head face down in a cardboard box towards the wall, obviously, dead. Like Mrs. Haley, Mr. Daniel called 911 for help.
Police attempted to trace Mrs. Daniel’s activities during the day. An employee of the Rogers Diagnostic Clinic testified that the victim came into the clinic around lunchtime to get a flu shot. Mrs. Daniel’s beautician, Gaye Tarron, testified that Mrs. Daniel had a standing appointment every Friday at 2:30 p.m. and had never skipped an appointment without calling first. On October 12, 1990, for the first time in ten years, Mrs. Daniel missed her appointment and did not call.
About two weeks after his wife’s death, Daniel and his daughter searched the house for missing items. They found that an expensive Lucien Piccard watch was gone as well as a couple of pearl necklaces, a gold rope necklace, and a matching gold necklace and bracelet. Also missing were a jewelry bag and a Nikon camera.
At the time of the murder, the appellant, Don Davis, was living with three roommates in a house in Bentonville. One of the roommates, Renee Davis, testified that during the time they were living together, Don Davis had been bringing stolen merchandise home. On the day of the murder, the appellant had come home sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. acting frightened, according to his roommates, telling his girlfriend and roommate, Susan Ferguson, that “somebody got hurt.” Property seen in his possession that day included a Realistic stereo, a number of guns, a black motorcycle jacket, a videocassette recorder, a television, a microwave, numerous t-shirts, and tools. Later that day the appellant allegedly admitted to Renee and Susan that “somebody had gotten killed” but emphasized that he did not do it claiming that he had been next door when the murder occurred. He said that he “didn’t know why he shot her, she was cooperating.” Among the many items of property Davis had in the car was a gun covered by a white towel. He told Renee that if she touched the “towel it would be her death sentence.”
According to Susan, Renee told appellant to get rid of the stolen property because she did not want it in her house; Davis left and returned about thirty minutes later explaining that he had dumped the property in the woods in a remote area. Four days after the murder a number of the items taken in the Haley burglary, as well as Mrs. Daniel’s house and car keys, were found in a remote area of Benton County. Renee told her other roommate, Dwayne, about Davis’s suspicious behavior and the stolen property. He urged her to go to the police.
Ultimately, the police arrived at Davis’s home to question Renee, and she and the other two roommates agreed to let them search the house. Among the many items discovered in the house was a .44 magnum Redhawk revolver, which the State later alleged was the murder weapon that killed Jane Daniel. Also discovered was the Amish quilt taken from the Haley residence. Inquiries at pawn shops in the area revealed that Davis had pawned many items taken from both the Haley and Davis residences.
By this time, Davis had fled the state by taking a bus to Las Vegas, Nevada and ultimately arriving in California. Witnesses from several pawn shops in Las Vegas testified that they had loaned the appellant money on goods he had pawned. These goods matched the description of goods stolen from the Davis and Haley households. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation found the appellant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and arrested him. While being arrested, Davis asked the agents for the cigarettes that had been in his car; he described them as Kool filter kings, the same brand of cigarette found at Mrs. Daniel’s house. Investigators also found Davis in possession of the black leather jacket stolen from the Haley house. Detective Steven Mark Russell testified that he travelled to Albuquerque to transport Davis back to Rogers, Arkansas, *262 and once they arrived in Rogers, Davis specifically asked for some Kool cigarettes.
Violette Hnilica, forensic pathologist with the Little Rock Medical Examiners Office, also testified at the trial. After conducting an autopsy she concluded that Jane Daniel had died from a contact wound resulting from an execution-style murder by a large caliber weapon to the back of her head.
Jeff Beck, a latent prints examiner with the State Crime Laboratory, testified he had tested fingerprints found on the masking tape holding the inner garage door open at the Haley residence and concluded that the prints belonged to Davis.
Berwin Monroe, Chief of the Firearms and Tool Marks section and an explosives analyst with the Arkansas State Crime Lab, also testified for the prosecution. He performed tests on the fragments of a metal jacket bullet removed from the victim and determined that this bullet was shot from the .44 magnum revolver discovered at Davis’s place of residence. State Crime Laboratory Firearms Examiner, Ronald Andrejack, corroborated Monroe’s findings.
Bruce Ward was sentenced to death by the State of Arkansas for the murder of a store clerk. According to court documents Bruce Ward would enter a convenience store where he would sexually assault the teenager clerk before killing her by strangulation. Bruce Ward would be arrested at the scene, be convicted and sentenced to death. Bruce Ward is the longest serving death row inmate in Arkansas. His execution has been delayed due to mental health issues as he is a diagnosed schizophrenic.
Sex MALE Hair Color BROWNE ye Color HAZEL Height 73 inches Weight 286 lbs.
Birth Date 12/24/1956
Initial Receipt Date 10/18/1990
Facility Varner Supermax
Bruce Ward More News
Guilt has followed a former friend of an Arkansas death row inmate for 30 years.
The woman claims Bruce Ward nearly killed her in Pennsylvania just months before raping and strangling an Arkansas teenager to death.
She blames herself because she never pressed charges.
For her safety, she asked that her picture and married name not be used in this story.
“I’ve had to wrestle with a lot of things since then,” Amy said.
When she was 19, Amy took the bus to and from Pittsburgh Beauty Academy. The stop started her friendship with then 31-year-old Ward in the winter of 1988.
“He was very attractive looking, very intelligent, very charming,” she said.
Ward told Amy he was out on parole for a non-violent crime. She gave him a chance.
“I felt very, very safe with him,” she said.
Until one night, about half a year later, when he attacked her.
“My pants were down, he’s strangling me and all of a sudden, he just stops,” she said.
Amy will never forget how Ward looked, like he was in a trance.
“He was just not him,” she said. “He told me, ‘I wanted to scare you. Why are you not scared?’”
She told police but didn’t press charges.
“I didn’t want my parents to know,” she said. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t want this to be a big thing. I’m a shy person.”
Amy saw Ward one more time. When he showed up at her school and called after her, two of her friends quickly ushered her away.
“I hadn’t even thought of him in many years,” she said.
She saw him next on the Internet.
“Whatever became of him? Is he doing okay?,” she wondered. “I was hoping that maybe he had gotten some help.”
Amy wasn’t prepared for what she found. Ward was really out on parole for the murder of a 32-year-old Pennsylvania woman, Janet Needham.
“I was thinking, ‘Jesus, if he told me the truth, I don’t think I’d be stupid enough to be hanging out with this guy. This can’t be possible,’” she said. “And I just kept reading more and more.”
She discovered he was back behind bars, this time on death row for an Arkansas woman’s murder just months after he attacked Amy.
“And then I read about Becky…,” she trailed off as she started to cry.
While 18-year-old Becky Doss was working the overnight shift at a Little Rock gas station in August 1989, Ward raped and strangled her. It was the same way he took Needham’s life and too similar to Amy’s story.
“Did I trigger something? I don’t know,” she said.
But after seeing our interview with Doss’s mother, Amy knew she had to say something 30 years later.
“It broke my heart,” she said. “My goodness, what my mother would have gone through if that happened to me.”
As Ward continues to sit locked up so does Amy, part of her forever stuck at that bus stop.
“I feel like there’s something I could have done differently,” she said. “An innocent victim whose life was taken by somebody who should not have been there, should not have been there.”
Ward has been on death row since 1990.
A Supreme Court ruling in 2015 paved the way for the state to resume executions for the first time in nearly ten years. Ward was scheduled to be executed that year.
Since then, different legal situations, including the use of lethal injection drug Midazolam, have put his execution on hold.
Christina Riggs was executed by the State of Arkansas for the murders of her two young children. Christina Riggs would be executed by lethal injection on May 2, 2000. Many believe that Christina wanted to be executed and from the time of the murders to her actual execution was less than three years.
Christina Riggs was born in Oklahoma on September 2, 1971 and she would work on a practical nurse.
On November 4, 1997 Christina Riggs planned the murders of her children. She gave them Amitriptyline in order to sedate her five year old son and two year old daughter. Christina then injected potassium chloride into her sons veins however she forgot to dilute the drug and it caused her son pain. Christina Riggs would smother her son and then would smother her two year old daughter.
Christina Riggs attempted to kill herself by taking 28 amitriptyline pills and injecting herself with potassium chloride. Christina’s mother would find her passed out on the floor and the two dead children in the bed. According to her defense team Riggs who dealt with major depressive disorder did not want her children split up after her suicide so decided to kill them
Christina Riggs would plead not guilty by reason of insanity however the defense would not work. Riggs would not allow her lawyers to put up a defense when it came to capital punishment. Christina would be sentenced to death.
Christina Riggs refused to file any appeals so her case blazed through and she was executed by lethal injection (using the same chemical she gave her son) on May 2, 2002
Christina Riggs Videos
Christina Riggs More News
A former nurse became the first woman to be executed in Arkansas for more than 150 years on Tuesday night, put to death by lethal injection for killing her two children in 1997.
Christina Marie Riggs’ last words were directed to the five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter she murdered. “I love you, my babies,” she said as a lethal mix of chemicals was injected into her wrist at a prison in Varner.
Riggs’ mother and lawyer initially argued that she had been suffering from post-traumatic stress from her work as a nurse treating victims of the terrorist bombing of a government building in Oklahoma City.
But Riggs, 28, waived her right to appeal and prevented her lawyer from applying for clemency, saying that she could not live with the guilt of the murders and wanted to be reunited with her children in heaven
“There is no way words can express how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies,” she said before the execution. “Now I can be with my babies, as I always intended.”
Human rights activists said her desire to die confirmed her mental instability, and asked for the execution to be stopped on the grounds that it would amount to state-assisted suicide. But the Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, turned down their appeal.
Yesterday Riggs’ lawyer, John Wesley Hall, said: “It started out as a suicide and ended as a suicide.”
Riggs told the police that in November 1997 she gave her son, Justin, and daughter, Shelby, some anti-depressants in a cup of water to sedate them.
She then injected a large dose of potassium chloride into her son’s neck with the aim of putting him to sleep. When he woke up and started crying, she injected him with morphine and smothered him with a pillow. She also smothered her daughter.
She laid the two dead children on her bed, before injecting herself with potassium chloride and swallowing 28 anti-depressants.
She left a suicide note for Shelby’s father saying: “I can’t live like this any more, and I couldn’t bear to leave my children behind to be a burden on you or to be separated and raised apart from their fathers and live knowing their mother killed herself.”
The prosecution portrayed her as a cold-blooded killer to whom her children were an “inconvenience”.
She was accused of leaving them locked in their room for hours while she went out at night to karaoke bars.
Doctors testifying for her said she had been severely depressed as a result of sexual abuse as a child, a series of failed relationships with men, lack of money, and lack of self-esteem because of her obesity.
She went to her death weighing 122kg (270lb). She agreed to the execution needles being put in her wrists when her executioners were unable to find a vein in her arm.
Denying that her misfortunes excused her acts, the county prosecutor, Larry Jegley, said: “She claims she was horribly depressed, she was overweight and she was a single mom, and she didn’t have enough money.
“My response to that is ‘welcome to America’. Plenty of folks are in far worse situations than she was.”
Women put to death in America
A total of 560 women have been executed in the US, 3% of the convicts put to death. Five have been executed since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated after a brief moratorium:
Velma BarfieldBy lethal injection in North Carolina on November 2 1984 for killing four people, including her mother and fiance, with ant poison. The sunday school teacher confessed and went to her death in pink pajamas after a meal of Cheez Doodles, a popular snack
Karla Faye Tucker By lethal injection in Texas on February 3 1998 for hacking two people to death with a pickaxe. She claimed to have undergone a religious conversion in prison and appealed unsuccessfully to the state governor, George W Bush, for clemency
Judy Buenoano By electric chair in Florida on March 30 1998 for poisoning her husband with arsenic. She was also convicted of drowning her son, who used a wheelchair
Betty Lou Beets By lethal injection in Texas on February 24 2000 for shooting her fifth husband and burying his body in her garden. The 62-year-old grandmother had been charged with, but not convicted of, shooting dead her fourth husband, whose body was also found in the garden, and was convicted of shooting and wounding her second husband. She claimed that she had been the victim of physical abuse by her successive spouses, but her appeal for clemency was turned down by Mr Bush
Christina Marie Riggs By lethal injection in Arkansas on May 2 2000 for the murder of her two children. She waived her right to appeal and forbade her lawyer to apply for clemency
28-year-old former nurse who had asked for the death penalty after murdering her two small children died by lethal injection Tuesday night, the first woman to be executed in Arkansas since 1845.
Christina Marie Riggs was put to death by lethal injection for killing her son, Justin, 5, and daughter, Shelby Alexis, 2, in November 1997.
Christina Riggs admitted killing the children, and explained that she was deeply depressed at the time. She said she gave her son potassium chloride and morphine and when that didn’t kill him, she smothered him with a pillow. Then she smothered her daughter. She also tried to kill herself with potassium chloride.
Potassium chloride was one of the three drugs the state used in executing Riggs.
The lethal injection was administered 9:18 p.m. Riggs was pronounced dead at 9:28 p.m.
Before the injection was administered, she made a statement that began,”No words can express just how sorry I am for taking the lives of my babies. No way I can make up for or take away the pain I have caused everyone who knew and loved them.”
After the injection was administered, her last words were, “I love you, my babies.”
At her 1998 trial, Christina Riggs asked jurors to sentence her to death, saying: “I want to be with my babies. I want you to give me the death penalty.”
Prosecutors said Riggs’ children had become an inconvenience. They said, for example, that she left them alone while she went to karaoke contests.
She gave both an antidepressant to make them drowsy, then injected Justin with the potassium chloride. But when Justin began crying, Riggs injected him with morphine left over from a hospital patient.
Then she smothered both children.
Riggs then took 28 antidepressant tablets in a suicide attempt.
The children were found dead in Riggs’ bed. Riggs was found on the floor.
Initially, Christina Riggs pursued appeal of her death sentence.
“We had to beg her to file an appeal of the conviction,” said her lawyer, John Wesley Hall Jr. of Little Rock.
But she soon withdrew it. “She just wanted to get it over with,” Hall said.
On Tuesday, Christina Riggs had the right to stop her execution at any time by resuming the appeals process again, but she chose not to do so.
Riggs was the only woman on Death Row in Arkansas and only the fifth woman to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
She was the 22nd Death Row inmate to be executed in Arkansas since 1990, when the state carried out its first execution after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment.
The last woman executed in Arkansas was Lavinia Burnett, hanged in 1845 as an accessory to murder.
Justin Staton was fourteen years old when he took part in the robbery and murder of a couple who helped raise him. According to police the Arkansas couple were found shot to death on their property and one of the suspects arrested, Justin Staton, was a teenager who they took in even after they learned he was not their biological grandchild. Justin Staton would take a plea at trial and this teen killer would receive a thirty five year prison sentence.
Justin Staton 2023 Information
ADC Number:
163883
Name:
Staton, Justin S
Race:
CAUCASIAN
Sex:
MALE
Hair Color:
BROWN
Eye Color:
BLUE
Height:
68 inches
Weight:
161 lbs.
Birth Date:
11/05/2000
Initial Receipt Date:
05/19/2016
Current Facility:
Tucker Unit
Justin Staton Other News
A teenager pleaded guilty Tuesday to the robbery and killing of a Conway couple who served as his legal guardians for years as part of a deal that requires him to offer testimony in the cases of three other teens charged in the deaths.
Justin Staton, 15, wiped away tears as he took the stand to tell Faulkner County Circuit Court Judge Troy Braswell that he understood that the agreement came with a recommended 35-year prison sentence.
Attorneys said Staton will remain in a juvenile correction facility until he is 16 years old and then be transferred to the Arkansas Department of Correction. He will be eligible for parole after serving 70 percent of his sentence, which is more than 24 years.
Staton pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, which were reduced from capital murder. He also pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery, theft by threat and abuse of a corpse in the July 2015 deaths of Robert and Patricia Cogdell.
The Cogdells weren’t Staton’s biological grandparents, but they raised the boy even after discovering via genetic testing in 2008 that their son, Robert Shane Cogdell, was not Staton’s father.
“I hope every day for the rest of your life, you think about them,” Braswell told Staton. “Because they loved you and took care of you. … And the thanks you gave them was murder.”
Staton was not eligible for the death penalty because he was 14 at the time of the crime, but he faced the possibility of life in prison.
Staton looked up during the hearing and answered the judge’s questions in a clear voice. But when asked if he had anything to say to the court, he wept again and whispered something inaudible.
The deal also required Staton to provide the state with the password to an iPod that prosecutor Hugh Alan Finkelstein said contained “substantial evidence” against Hunter Drexler, another teen who faces capital murder charges in the case.
Finkelstein said the iPod was used to send messages to an iPhone police obtained from Drexler, but which they have been unable to unlock. A separate prepaid phone prosecutors say was purchased with $700 of the $3,000 taken from the Cogdells has not been recovered, according to Finkelstein.
Prosecutors allege the pair robbed and shot the Cogdells at their Conway home, then dumped their bodies in a wooded area nearby. Two other teens, Connor Atchley and Anastasia Roberts, both 17, are charged as adults with first-degree murder and theft by receiving.
Prosecutors allege three of the teens came up with the plan to kill the Cogdells while they were in a juvenile detention center together.
Justin Staton Other News
Robert and Patricia Cogdell helped raise Justin Staton.
They were the teen’s legal guardians, a role they took on even after learning that Staton wasn’t their biological grandson, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
But in 2015, the Cogdells were fatally shot, their bodies found near their Arkansas home, and Staton, at the age of 14, was among those charged in their killings. The Associated Press reported that the plot was a “robbery-and-murder scheme,” concocted with other teens during a stint in juvenile jail.
This week, Staton, who is now 15, pleaded guilty to a handful of charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, according to court documents.
“I hope every day for the rest of your life, you think about them,” Faulkner County Circuit Court Judge Troy Braswell told Staton in court, according to the AP. “Because they loved you and took care of you … and the thanks you gave them was murder.”
Staton, who was charged and tried as an adult, was sentenced to a 35-year prison term.
“This is tragic for everybody,” his attorney, Gina Reynolds, told The Post. “My client has provided information to the prosecutor and in exchange for that, he was offered this plea deal. We hope that this eventually manages to give the family some peace.”
According to the Democrat-Gazette, Staton agreed to testify against the others charged in the shootings — a group that includes Hunter Drexler, who was 17 at the time of the crime. The newspaper reported that Staton also turned over the passcode for an Apple device that contains text messages exchanged with Drexler.
“The state believes it has determined what the appropriate pyramid of culpability is related to the 4 defendants in the case and the Staton plea is the first step pursuing that theory of the case,” 20th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland said in an email to The Post. “As the result of information obtained from the plea, the state hopes to bolster its position relative to the other defendant(s) in this matter and hopefully bring some measure of justice in the death of two of people whose only crime was loving their grandson.
The case was detailed in a brief document filed on the same day as the plea.
The court filing alleges that Staton — along with Drexler and another teen — plotted to kill the Cogdells “in order to get money to help them run away from Arkansas.”
Drexler brought the firearms, the court documents allege, and both he and Staton were “armed with guns in the killing of Robert and Patricia Cogdell.”
“After the Cogdells were shot, Hunter Drexler wrapped the body of Robert Cogdell in a rug and Justin used a front loader to move his body to the tree line on the property,” the document states.
The machine was also used to move the body of Patricia Cogdell, according to the filing.
“Both bodies were dumped in the woods,” the document states.
Drexler and Staton then drove to a Walmart, where Drexler “paid over $700 in cash for a cell phone and prepaid minutes,” using money that had been taken from Robert Cogdell, the document alleges.
Frequently Asked Questions
Justin Staton Now
Justin Staton is currently incarcerated at the Tucker Facility in Texas
Justin Staton Release Date
Justin Staton is not eligible for release until 2051
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