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Ernest Knighton Louisiana Execution

Ernest Knighton was executed by the State of Louisiana for a murder committed during a robbery. According to court documents Ernest Knighton would cause the death of a gas station manager during a robbery. Ernest Knighton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Ernest Knighton would be executed by way of the electric chair on October 30, 1984

Ernest Knighton More News

Convicted killers were executed within seven minutes of each other in Texas and Louisiana early today, one reciting the 23rd Psalm on his way to the electric chair for killing a gas station owner and the other saying goodbye to his death row friends.

‘I’m going home,’ Earnest Knighton, 38, said moments before he was electrocuted at 12:17 a.m. CST in ‘Gruesome Gertie,’ the inmates’ name for the electric chair at the state prison in Angola, La.

Seven minutes later and 235 miles away in Huntsville, Texas, Thomas Andy Barefoot, 39, an oilfield roughneck who said God had promised to spare him, was pronounced dead from a lethal injection.

‘I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to anybody,’ Barefoot said.

After being injected Barefoot turned to a reporter who witnessed the execution and asked her to say farewell to his friends on death row.

‘… tell all my friends hello,’ he said. ‘You know who they are. Charlie Bass, David Powell …’

At that point Barefoot broke off with a choke and a gasp and he let out three short, sharp, soft cries and died.

Knighton and Barefoot became the 27th and 28th people executed since the Supreme Court lifted the ban on the death penalty eight years ago. Attorneys for a woman on North Carolina’s death row filed appeals Monday to prevent her from becoming the first woman executed in 22 years on Friday.

The Supreme Court and other courts rejected last-minute appeals Monday from both Barefoot and Knighton and the governors of Louisiana and Texas refused to intervene.

Knighton’s lawyers claimed he was drug-crazed when he killed Ralph Shell of Bossier City, La., during a March 17, 1981, robbery that netted $300.

Barefoot, convicted in the 1978 shooting death of Carl LeVin, a Harker Heights, Texas, police officer, had received four stays of execution. His attorneys argued psychiatric testimony used in the punishment phase was obtained illegally and important information was suppressed.

As he was led down the long corridor to the death chamber, Knighton recited the 23rd Psalm, raising his voice as he crossed the threshold, saying, ‘Surely I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’

In a written statement, he apologized for his crime but spoke out against his punishment, saying, ‘You don’t teach respect for life by killing. I urge you not to kill anyone else.’

Barefoot asked for forgiveness and said he held no grudges.

‘I’ve been praying all day for Carl LeVin’s wife to drive the bitterness from her heart because that bitterness in her heart will send her to hell,’ Barefoot said as he was strapped to a table prior to injection

‘I want everybody to know I hold nothing against them. I forgive them all. I hope everybody I’ve done anything wrong to will forgive me.’

Small groups of protesters gathered outside both prisons.

A crowd of mostly students from nearby Sam Houston State University cheered and waved placards ridiculing Barefoot outside the prison in Huntsville. One woman carried a 4-foot-long mock syringe.

About 30 people protesting the death penalty met outside Angola State Penitentiary. The were met by a handful of demonstrators in favor of the death penalty. Both stood quietly facing each other across the road into the prison.

In North Carolina, attorneys for Margie Velma Barfield filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court to stop her Friday execution.

The 52-year-old grandmother admitted poisoning her mother and three others, but has said she was addicted to drugs and did not know what she was doing.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/30/Killers-executed-in-Louisiana-and-Texas/5829467960400/

Thomas Barefoot Texas Execution

Thomas Barefoot was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a police officer. According to court documents Thomas Barefoot was being placed under arrest for the rape of a three year old girl when he shot and killed a police officer. Thomas Barefoot would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Thomas Barefoot would be executed by lethal injection on October 30, 1984

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Convicted copkiller Thomas Barefoot dodged four dates with the executioner in Texas, but lost his last hope for a reprieve Monday, while the death stay request of Earnest Knighton was also rejected a final time by Louisiana’s governor and the courts.

Both men were scheduled to be executed shortly after midnight.

Texas Gov. Mark White late Monday refused to halt Barefoot’s death by injection, and a series of state and federal courts rejected last-ditch efforts to block Knighton’s execution.

The state Supreme Court in Louisiana late Monday voted 6-0 in refusing to stop Knighton’s scheduled death by electrocution. U.S. District Judge Tom Stagg in Shreveport, La., the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the U.S. Supreme Court also refused to intervene.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to reject an appeal seeking to halt Barefoot’s execution and review his conviction and sentence.

Meanwhile, North Carolina attorneys for Margie Velma Barfield, a convicted poisoner, filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court to stop her Friday execution. The 52-year-old grandmother, who admitted killing her mother and three others, would become the nation’s first woman executed in 22 years

Thomas Barefoot, 39, an oilfield roughneck who said God promised to spare him, spent Monday in his cell, visiting with relatives and friends, a prison spokesman in Huntsville, Texas, said.

‘If God tells me it’s not going to rain and I go get an umbrella, then it’s going to rain,’ Barefoot said.

Knighton, 38, faces ‘Gruesome Gerdie,’ nickname for Louisiana’s battered electric chair in Angola, La.

Knighton’s attorneys twice urged Gov. Edwin Edwards to stay his execution, claiming Knighton was drug crazed when he killed RalphShell of Bossier City, La., and took $300 from his service station.

Thomas Barefoot was convicted in the 1978 shooting death of Harker Heights police officer Carl LeVin.

He won two stays of execution in 1983 and one each in 1980 and 1981. His case was selected by the Supreme Court last year to test how to handle last-minute appeals to the federal courts.

‘It’s worse whenever I really think it’s going to happen,’ LeVin’s widow said. ‘I thought he was going to be executed in January ’83. I’m at a fever pitch now. When it doesn’t (happen), it hurts. It really hurts.’

LeVin was shot once in the head while investigating a case of arson. The .25-caliber pistol used in the slaying was found in Barefoot’s pocket when he was arrested

Barefoot’s attorneys argued psychiatric testimony used in the punishment phase was gotten illegally and important information was suppressed.

They also wanted Texas officials to halt executions until the Supreme Court rules on whether execution by injection is legal.

Twenty-six people have been executed since the Supreme Court removed the ban on the death penalty eight years ago

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/29/Convicted-copkiller-Thomas-Andy-Barefoot-dodged-four-dates-with/1288467874000/

Timothy Palmes And Ronald Straight Florida Execution

Timothy Palmes - Florida Ronald Straight

Timothy Palmes and Ronald Straight would be executed by the State of Florida for a robbery murder. According to court documents Timothy Palmes and Ronald Straight would stage the robbery at the victims secretary home. When the victim arrived he was brutally beaten, had fingers amputated and stabbed to death. Timothy Palmes would be executed on November 8, 1984 and Ronald Straight would be executed on May 20, 1986

Timothy Palmes And Ronald Straight More News

Timothy Charles Palmes went calmly to his death today in Florida’s electric chair for the torture killing of a furniture store owner whose body was stuffed in a homemade box and dumped into a river.

Timothy Palmes, 37, was pronounced dead at 10:07 a.m. EST from a 90-second surge of 2,000 volts of electricity in the old, oaken chair known as ‘Old Sparky.’

Asked if he had any last words, Palmes gave a slight grin and said, ‘My family’s love has been my strength. That’s all. Goodbye.’

Then he shut his eyes tightly as guards put a gag over his mouth and a black flap over his face.

Palmes’ fists clinched as the hooded executioner turned on the electricity at 10:03 a.m. His chest heaved upward and the muscles in his arm and neck bulged. Light smoke came from an electrode on his lower right leg and his skin turned an ashen color.

Two doctors checked and pronounced the muscular 5-foot-10, 160-pounder dead four minutes later.

Prison Superintendent Richard Dugger then got on an open telephone line to Gov. Bob Graham and told him the execution had been carried out.

About 35 demonstrators — carrying signs, singing and praying – protested the execution in a pasture across from the prison, singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ as it was carried out. Ten others carried signs in favor of capital punishment and clapped when word was received that Palmes was dead

Timothy Palmes already was on probation for manslaughter when he and two accomplices joined in the 1976 robbery-murder of James Stone, 41, of Jacksonville. Stone’s body was found by divers on the bottom of the St. John’s River.

Palmes initially confessed but later pleaded innocent. He was convicted, however, on the testimony of a female accomplice who was granted immunity.

The execution was the 10th in Florida and the 30th in the nation since the Supreme Court lifted the ban on capital punishment in 1976.

Palmes lost his last appeal Wednesday when the Supreme Court refused by a 7-2 vote to intervene. Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall dissented, as they do in all death penalty cases.

Prison spokesman Vernon Bradford said Palmes ate his final meal of T-bone steak, eggs, hash brown potatoes, biscuits, orange juice and coffee about 4:30 a.m. EST. ‘He ate everything he had asked for,’ said Bradford.

Bradford said Palmes met with his mother, Ann Palmes, three sisters and two nieces from 8 p.m. Wednesday until 1 a.m. today.

‘He has a very realistic attitude,’ said Bradford. ‘I think he thinks the time is here.’

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave Palmes a one-day reprieve Tuesday to allow him to appeal to the high court. That stay expired at 10 a.m. today and prison officials proceeded with the execution. His death warrant was to expire at noon

The condemned killer spent Wednesday in a holding cell about 30 feet from the death chamber, watching television and chatting with prison guards. He declined to hold a final news conference.

Palmes and Chester Levon Maxwell, 29, were both scheduled to die Wednesday in the nation’s first double execution in 19 years.

But Florida’s Supreme Court issued an indefinite stay Tuesday to Maxwell so it can rule on the merits of an appeal claiming he had organic brain damage that was not fully considered by his trial judge.

Palmes’ attorneys maintained he and co-defendant Ronald Straight, who remains on death row, were unfairly sentenced while accomplice Jane Albert, who testified for the prosecution, was granted immunity.

According to testimony, Albert, an employee at Stone’s furniture store, lured Stone to her apartment with the promise of meeting a woman.

When he arrived, Palmes and Straight jumped Stone, bound his hands and feet with wire, put a garbage bag over his head, beat him with a hammer and stabbed him 18 times.

The trio then stole $3,100 from Stone, stuffed his body in the weighted box, dumped it in the river and fled the state in Stone’s car. They were captured a week later in California.

Palmes had been scheduled to be executed in 1980, but a federal judge intervened.

Palmes spent his last few hours with an official observer who was hired by the Corrections Department to make sure he was not mistreated. His family visited until 1 a.m. and he did not ask that a minister be present.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/11/08/Timothy-Charles-Palmes-went-calmly-to-his-death-today/2931468738000/

Alpha Stephens Georgia Execution

Alpha Stephens was executed by the State of Georgia for a robbery murder. According to court documents Alpha Stephens would shoot and kill the victim when he and Claude Sampson were robbing his sons home. Both Alpha Stephens and Claude Sampson would be arrested. Claude Sampson would be sentenced to life without parole however would take his own life in 1982. Alpha Stephens who had a long criminal record was sentenced to death. Alpha Stephens would be executed by way of the electric chair however it would take additional jolts to end his life. Alpha Stephens would die on December 12 1984

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Double-murderer Alpha Otis Stephens was executed in Georgia’s electric chair today with two 2,080-volt surges 10 minutes apart, shortly after he tried to commit suicide by cutting his wrist.

Prison officials said one surge of electricity was expected to carry out the execution order and Stephens was ‘brain dead’ after the first surge.

But witnesses saw Stephens’ fingers move and his head rolled back and forth after the first surge.

‘It was almost like he was trying to wake himself up,’ said reporter Lee Howell. ‘Then he started breathing. We counted 23 breaths and they were deep breaths. It was obvious he was alive.’

Stephens, who received his first jolt at 12:18 a.m. and his second at 12:28 a.m., was pronounced dead at 12:37 a.m. EST.

The wooden electric chair at Georgia’s Diagnostic and Classification Center had been tested five times this week. Although officials only planned to give Stephens one jolt, they insisted ‘there apparently was no malfunction.’

The 39-year-old career criminal with 19 felony convictions cut his wrist in the final hours after he had been shaven to prepare for the execution. Prisons spokesman John Siler said the cut was not life threatening.

‘Oh Jesus, no way,’ said Siler. ‘It has gotten out of hand. He had smuggled a small disposable razor in and had a small cut, a slight scratch on his left wrist.

‘It was minor — very little blood. It was hardly life threatening.’

Siler said it was not known how Stephens got the razor.

‘We are looking at that now,’ he said. ‘He had just been shaved. He must have smuggled it in.’

Stephens made no final statement, but wrote his last victim’s son earlier this week asking to be forgiven.

Stephens, who received his first jolt at 12:18 a.m. and his second at 12:28 a.m., was pronounced dead at 12:37 a.m. EST.

‘Oh Jesus, no way,’ said Siler. ‘It has gotten out of hand. He had smuggled a small disposable razor in and had a small cut, a slight scratch on his left wrist.

‘It was minor — very little blood. It was hardly life threatening.’

Siler said it was not known how Stephens got the razor.

‘We are looking at that now,’ he said. ‘He had just been shaved. He must have smuggled it in.’

Stephens made no final statement, but wrote his last victim’s son earlier this week asking to be forgiven.

Stephens, who began his criminal career at age 16 with an auto theft, was sentenced to death for the 1974 execution-style slaying of Roy Asbell, who caught Stephens and an accomplice robbing his son’s home.

The Rev. Charles Asbell said Stephens wrote him and ‘asked that I would forgive him and I did.’ But he added: ‘He chose to be wicked; he chose to be sinful. I feel the sentence should be carried out.’

Stephens became the 31st convict executed in the nation since 1976. His attorneys made two last-ditch appeals Tuesday to the Supreme Court and his final plea was denied at 11:22 p.m.

The Rev. Murphy Davis, a Presbyterian minister and director of Southern Prison Ministry in Atlanta, spent more than five hours with Stephens before the execution.

‘This is not justice,’ she said. ‘This is just an easy way for the state to answer its problems

She said Stephens was an abused child ‘who was on his own from about the age of six.’

Stephens, who had a childhood of poverty and was known as ‘Sonny Boy,’ had a final meal of fried shrimp, french fries, tossed salad, Coke and pecan pie. He was not visited by his family or his common-law wife and teenage daughter.

The last meal Stephens had outside prison was a $40 steak, champagne and beer dinner in Savannah in August 1974 just hours after he robbed and killed the elder Asbell with two point-blank shots through the ear.

Asbell was slain just two days after Stephens escaped from the Houston County Jail with a hacksaw he bought from a trusty for $20.

Claude Sampson, Stephens’ accomplice in the Asbell robbery-murder, was sentenced to Georgia’s State Prison in Riedsville and committed suicide there in 1982.

Stephens, who spent most of his life in prison, also had been sentenced to five life terms fo crimes ranging from killing country store owner Louise Mercer in 1973 to armed robbery and kidnapping.

After killing Asbell and leaving his body in an abandoned house used to store hay, Stephens then fled to Savannah in the dead man’s car, picked up a woman and they shared a nine-course dinner at a hotel restaurant.

But Stephens drank so much champagne and beer he passed out on a park bench. He was arrested when police awakened him and the .357 magnum that killed Asbell fell from his coat.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/12/12/Double-murderer-Alpha-Otis-Stephens-was-executed-in-Georgias-electric/6160471675600/

Robert Willie Louisiana Execution

Robert Willie was executed by the State of Louisiana for the sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Robert Willie and Joseph Vaccaro would kidnap eighteen year old Faith Hathaway who would be sexually assaulted and killed. Three days later the two men would attack a young couple, sexually assault the female and shot the male. The male would survive his injuries however he would be paralyzed. Robert Willie and Joseph Vaccaro would be arrested, Robert Willie would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. The book and movie Dead Man Walking is based on the relationship between Robert Willie and Sister Helen Prejean.

Robert Willie More News

Robert Lee Willie, who raped and killed an 18-year-old Mandevile woman, was executed Friday morning after telling the victim’s parents, “I hope you get some relief from my death.”

Willie, 26, who was pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m., became the sixth Louisiana man executed in the past 13 months, and the 32nd nationwide since executions resumed in 1977.

Vern and Elizabeth Harvey, the stepfather and mother of murder victim Faith Hathaway, were among eight people witnessing the execution. The Harveys have been vocal supporters of the death penalty and have demonstrated in support of capital punishment at other executions.

The Harveys did not move or show emotion as Willie spoke to them.

But within a half-hour after the execution, a smiling Vern Harvey poured a drink for himself and his wife in their van parked outside the state penitentiary’s main gate.

“Do you want to dance?” he asked a reporter. “First thing I’m gonna do is have a drink, then go home and get some rest.”

Willie, who had said earlier that he was not afraid of the electric chair, was led into the death chamber just after midnight. He was wearing jeans, a white sweatshirt, and white slippers; and was escorted by six guards.

“I would just like to say Mr. and Mrs. Harvey that I hope you get some relief from my death,” he said. “Killing people is wrong. That’s why you’ve put me to death. It makes no difference whether it’s citizens, countries, or governments. Killing is wrong.”

He was strapped into the chair and a hood was placed over his head.

Then, he asked Angola State Penitentiary Warden Frank Blackburn to remove the hood, and he winked at Sister Helen Prejean of New Orleans, his spiritual advisor.

Prejean was praying, and said, “Forgive those who collaborate.”

At 12:07, Willie was jolted by 2,000 volts of electricity for 10 seconds, and then 500 volts for 20 seconds. The sequence was repeated.

West Feliciana Parish Coroner Alfred Gould examined Willie at 12:13 and pronounced him dead at 12:15.

On his last day, Willie visited with his mother, Elizabeth Oalman of Covington, four brothers, and Prejean.

Blackburn said that Willie was served the last meal he requested — fried fish, oysters and shrimp — as well as some french fries and a salad.

Blackburn said Willie’s mood before the execution was “quiet and somber … appropriate to the occasion. He doesn’t seem scared, but he’s not lighthearted.”

Outside the prison, Hathaway’s sister, Lizabeth, 14, demonstrated for the death penalty along with a half-dozen members of Parents of Murdered Children, a group the family founded.

Death penalty opponents did not demonstrate at Angola, as they have in the past, but staged a vigil outside the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge. As they prayed, tourists took photos of the governor’s 40-foot Christmas tree.

Before the execution, Vern Harvey said he regretted that Willie would not feel much pain from the electrocution.

“It’s going to be quick for him. I’d rather it would be a lot slower. I think he deserves the painful death she had.”

Willie sometimes said he’s sorry for his crimes, but couldn’t understand “why everybody keeps bringing it up.” He said Harvey shouldn’t dwell on the murder.

“It’s like he’s a glutton for punishment over her death,” Willie said.

In interviews last week, Willie recounted his life of drugs, booze, and violence in remorseless terms, and said he was not afraid to die.

“Electric chair don’t worry me, man,” he said. “I have a lot of pride, I don’t run from nothing.”

Willie said he and a friend, Joseph Jesse Vaccaro, were “loaded” at 4:30 a.m. May 28, 1980, when they say Hathaway walking alongside Mandevile road. Hathaway was returning from a celebration on the night before she was scheduled to enter the Army.

Willie and Vaccaro blindfolded her, raped her, and drove her to a remote section of Washington Parish.

“She just kept saying, ‘I won’t identify y’all or nothing,'” Willie said. “She kept saying ‘Don’t hurt me.'”

Willie and Vaccaro offer different accounts of the stabbing that ensued, blaming each other for the 17 knife wounds that took Hathaway’s life.

Willie said Vaccaro, unexpectedly began stabbing Hathaway and that he helped by holding her hands. But Vaccaro, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the murder, said at trial that “Willie jugged her and jugged her until she begged us to kill her.”

Eight days later, Willie and Vaccaro kidnapped a Madisonville couple from a wooded lovers’ lane and drove them to Alabama. They raped the 16-year-old girl, and then stabbed and shot her boyfriend, 20-year-old Mark Brewster, leaving him tied to a tree.

Brewster survived, but is paralyzed from the waist down, At trial, Willie mocked the victims by blowing kisses at the woman he raped and drawing his finger across his throat in a menacing fashion when Brewster took the stand.

After his conviction for Hathaway’s murder, Willie pleaded guilty to the 1978 killing of Dennis Hemby near Covington. Willie said he and his cousin, Perry Wayne Taylor, beat and drowned Hemby and stole $10,000 worth of marijuana from him.

Taylor plead guilty to manslaughter and is serving a 21-year-sentence.

Willie was also given six life sentences stemming from those crimes.

John Willie, 53, the condemned man’s father, served 27 years at Angola for cattle theft, aggravated battery, and manslaughter. He said that his son and Vaccaro both deserve to die.

“I believe more in capital punishment than those people on the juries,” he said. “I’d like to pull the switch myself or shoot them down.”

Wiring of chair account retracted

The father of convicted murderer Robert Lee Willie said Thursday he did not wire the electric chair at the state penitentiary at Angola in which his son was to be executed early Friday.

John Willie retracted an earlier account in which he claimed to have wired the chair when he was an inmate electrician in 1982. That claim was published in an article Thursday in The Times-Picayune/The States Item.

Angola Warden Frank Blackburn said Thursday the chair was wired before 1982 and that Willie was not an electrician and did no work on it. An inmate would not have been used for the job, Blackburn said.

Willie, responding to Blackburn’s statement, said that while he was an inmate at the prison in 1982 he watched electricians work on the chair, but did none of the work himself.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/angel/articles/timespicayune1228.html