execution | My Crime Library

Michael Taylor Missouri Execution

Michael Taylor was executed by the State of Missouri for the sexual assault and murder of a fifteen year old girl. According to court documents Michael Taylor and Roderick Nunley would kidnap fifteen year old Ann Harrison from a bus stop. The teen girl would be repeatedly sexually assaulted before being murdered. Both Michael Taylor and Roderick Nunley would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Roderick Nunley would be executed in 2015. Michael Taylor would be executed by lethal injection on February 26, 2014.

Michael Taylor More News

Missouri has gone ahead with executing a death-row prisoner using a drug from an unspecified source. The lethal injection of pentobarbital used to kill Michael Taylor, 47, who raped and murdered a teenage girl in 1989, was presumed to have been bought by the state from a compounding pharmacy – a supply arrangement that sparked legal challenges over the potential cruelty of using an unregulated drug.

Taylor offered no final statement. He mouthed silent words to his parents, two clergymen and two other relatives who witnessed his death. As the process began he took two deep breaths before closing his eyes for the last time.

Taylor was pronounced dead shortly after midnight. Federal courts and the governor had refused last-minute appeals from his attorneys, who argued that execution drugs purchased from a compounding pharmacy could have caused Taylor inhuman pain and suffering.

Nunley also was sentenced to death and is awaiting execution.

In their appeal Taylor’s attorneys questioned Missouri’s use of an unnamed compounding pharmacy to provide pentobarbital. They also cited concerns about the state executing inmates before appeals were complete and argued that Taylor’s original trial attorney was so overworked that she encouraged him to plead guilty.

Taylor’s attorneys argued use of the drug from an unspecified source could cause an inmate pain and suffering because no one could check if the maker was legitimate and had a record of producing safe drugs.

The official makers of pentobarbital refuse to sell it for executions.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/26/michael-taylor-executed-by-missouri-using-compounded-pentobarbital

Juan Chavez Florida Execution

Juan Chavez was executed by the State of Florida for the murder of a nine year old child. According to court documents Juan Chavez would kidnap nine year old Jimmy Ryce after the child was dropped off by his school bus. The little boy would be sexually assaulted and murdered. Juan Chavez would ultimately confess to the brutal murder. Juan Chavez would be executed by lethal injection on February 12 2014.

Juan Chavez More News

Don Ryce watched his son’s killer die Wednesday night. He said Juan Carlos Chavez’s actions sealed his fate. “As a result of that choice,” Ryce said, “he died today [Wednesday].”

A last minute appeal delayed for two hours Chavez’s execution for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Jimmy Ryce, the 9-year-old boy he grabbed near the child’s bus stop south of Miami in 1995. But the U.S. Supreme Court quickly denied a stay based on complaints about lethal injection.

Don Ryce hopes other would-be sexual predators might take a lesson from the execution. He said, “Don’t kill a child because, if you do, people will not forget, they will not forgive. We will hunt you down, and we will put you to death”.

Chavez offered only a handwritten statement before being put to death. He said in part: “We men are slow to learn that since none of us is righteous, none of us can pass judgment in another’s man’s sins.”

Not a single word of remorse from a man who proclaimed himself at peace.

Laura Moreno is one of the Orlando area jurors who convicted Chavez in 1998. She witnessed his death and said, “I was expecting to feel a little sad, but I didn’t. Instead I felt a little angry that he got to have a simple peaceful death and just go to sleep. We could all wish for such a death — whereas he did not give that to Jimmy at all.”

In the end, as Don Ryce put it, a chapter needed to be closed in the life of his family. But nothing can ever fill the void left by the loss of a child whose life held so much hope and promise

https://www.wflx.com/story/24717526/jimmy-ryce-killer-juan-carlos-chavez-executed/

Herbert Smulls Missouri Execution

Herbert Smulls was executed by the State of Missouri for a robbery murder that took place in 1991. According to court documents Herbert Smulls would murder Stephen Honickman during a robbery in 1991. Herbert Smulls would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Herbert Smulls would be executed by lethal injection on January 29, 2014

Herbert Smulls More News

Missouri has executed a man convicted of killing a jewellery store owner during a 1991 robbery after the US supreme court denied last-minute appeals that in part challenged the drug used in the execution.

“After the United States supreme court vacated three separate stays of execution on January 29 2014, Herbert Smulls was executed for the 1991 murder of Stephen Honickman,” said Chris Koster, the Missouri attorney general.

Smulls, 56, was pronounced dead at 10.20pm local time at a state prison in Bonne Terre after receiving a lethal dose of pentobarbital, the corrections department said.

The supreme court on Wednesday lifted a temporary stay of execution for Smulls, denying last-minute appeals. The top court late on Wednesday also vacated a stay from the US court of appeals.

Lawyers for Smulls sought another stay late on Wednesday but Missouri went ahead with the execution before the midnight expiration of the state’s death warrant.

Lawyers for Smulls had sought to block his execution on multiple grounds, arguing in part that the compounded pentobarbital drug Missouri used to kill him may not be as pure and as potent as it should be, which could cause undue suffering.

Missouri and several other states have turned to compounding pharmacies, which are not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, to acquire drugs for executions after an increasing number of pharmaceutical manufacturers objected to their drugs being used in capital punishment.

The increasing use of compounded drugs and untested drug mixes has brought renewed debate over the death penalty in the United States. In Oklahoma an inmate said he felt burning through his body when the lethal drugs were injected during an execution in early January. Later in the month an Ohio man gasped and convulsed during his execution with a two-drug mix never before used in the United States.

Smulls was the sixth person executed in the United States in 2014 and the third in Missouri since November.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/30/herbert-smulls-executed-as-appeals-fail

Kenneth Hogan Oklahoma Execution

Kenneth Hogan was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of a woman in 1988. According to court documents Kenneth Hogan would stab to death Lisa Stanley in her home and would then knock over a number of items to make it look like a robbery gone bad. Kenneth Hogan would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Kenneth Hogan would be executed by lethal injection on January 23, 2014

Kenneth Hogan More News

An Oklahoma man who was convicted of stabbing a close friend to death more than a quarter-century ago was executed Thursday.

Kenneth Eugene Hogan, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. after he received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

Hogan admitted to stabbing 21-year-old Lisa Stanley but said he did so in self-defense after she lunged at him with a knife.

Prosecutors said Hogan stabbed the woman more than 25 times in the back, neck and chest in January 1988, then knocked over several objects in her Oklahoma City apartment to make it appear as though she had been robbed.

When interrogated, he gave police inconsistent statements.

The state Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency for Hogan this month by a 4-1 vote. Hogan is the second person to be executed in Oklahoma this year.

Hogan’s initial conviction was overturned in 1999 by an appeals court that said the jury should’ve been allowed to consider a verdict of manslaughter.

“By denying the jury the option to convict him on a lesser, noncapital offense supported by the evidence, thus leaving only a choice between conviction of capital murder and acquittal, Oklahoma may have encouraged the jury to convict for an impermissible reason its belief that the defendant is guilty of some serious crime and should be punished,” the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held.

Oklahoma appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2000 refused to reinstate Hogan’s conviction.

A different jury in 2003 convicted him again and sentenced him to die.

“Kenneth Eugene Hogan was sentenced to death by a jury of his peers for the heinous stabbing of Lisa Renee Stanley, who was a young wife and a promising student,” Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said in a statement Thursday. “My thoughts and prayers are with Lisa’s family and friends.”

Randy Bauman, Hogan’s attorney, declined to comment this week.

Stanley’s relatives wrote to the state in December, saying Hogan has had “26 years of appeals on his behalf, making our family relive that day over and over again.”

“You destroyed me and my family,” said Norma Tressler, Stanley’s mother. “I want peace and justice to be served for my daughter. I want for this nightmare to finally end.

“And on Jan. 23, 2014, I pray for closure. It is well past due.”

Stanley’s mother-in-law, Frieda Stanley, wrote that no amount of time could erase the memories she still has of the day of the crime and its aftermath.

“Lisa’s little dog barking in the background, interviews at the police station and later picking out clothing for Lisa to wear at her funeral that would cover her wounds,” she wrote. “Lisa’s death and how she died is always with us and has shaped and formed us as individuals and a family.”

At the time of Hogan’s trial, his defense team said Hogan and Stanley began arguing after smoking marijuana together and Stanley tried to stab him

According to lawyers, he took the knife from her and then she tried to attack him with another one.

Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Bob Horn, who worked the crime scene, described Stanley’s killing as “cruel and heinous.”

He also said the large volume of her blood found in different rooms throughout her apartment “showed that she must have been suffering a long time before she died.”

“Justice demands that the execution of Kenneth Hogan be carried out,” Horn wrote in a December letter to the parole board.

Earlier this month, Michael Lee Wilson, 38, was put to death for orchestrating a deadly assault on a convenience store worker in Tulsa in 1995.

https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/killer-executed-in-1988-oklahoma-city-fatal-stabbing/article_012622f6-aede-55e9-aa71-aad6c72de0da.html

Edgar Tamayo Texas Execution

Edgar Tamayo was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a police officer. According to court documents Edgar Tamayo would shoot and kill Houston police officer Guy Gaddis in 1994. Edgar Tamayo who was an illegal immigrant scheduled execution caused a riff between Mexico and the State of Teas however in the end Edgar Tamayo would be executed by lethal injection on January 22, 2014

Edgar Tamayo More News

A last-ditch push to keep a convicted cop killer alive failed Wednesday night when the U.S. Supreme Court denied a motion to stay his execution.

Edgar Tamayo Arias, a Mexican national, was executed at 9:32 p.m. CT, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.

His execution marks the first of the year in Texas and the 509th in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Tamayo did not make a statement before his death, department spokesman Jason Clark said.

Mexico’s government had been pushing to block Tamayo’s execution, arguing that it would violate international law.

Lawyers for Tamayo criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“He will be executed tonight, despite the indisputable fact that his right to consular assistance was violated,” attorneys Sandra L. Babcock and Maurie Levin said in a statement before Tamayo’s lethal injection.

Tamayo, 46, was convicted of the 1994 murder of a Houston police officer.

Officer Guy Gaddis was fatally shot after arresting Tamayo and another man for robbery.

Tamayo’s supporters say he was denied access to his consulate when arrested, as required by an international treaty.

In the past five years, Texas has executed two other Mexicans convicted of murder who raised similar claims. The Supreme Court refused to delay either of those executions, which took place in 2008 and 2011.

Tamayo’s lawyers argued the consulate access violation was more than a technicality — that Mexican officials would have ensured he had the most competent trial defense possible, if they had been able to speak with him right after his felony arrest.

The Bush and Obama administrations had urged Texas and other states to grant Tamayo and inmates in similar situations new hearings, fearing repercussions for Americans arrested overseas.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has also weighed in on Tamayo’s case, arguing that setting an execution date is “extremely detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

“I want to be clear: I have no reason to doubt the facts of Mr. Tamayo’s conviction, and as a former prosecutor, I have no sympathy for anyone who would murder a police officer,” Kerry wrote. “This is a process issue I am raising because it could impact the way American citizens are treated in other countries.”

Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said the state was committed to enforcing its laws.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from — if you commit a despicable crime like this in Texas, you are subject to our state laws, including a fair trial by jury and the ultimate penalty,” she said.

Tamayo was one of 40 Mexican citizens awaiting the death penalty in U.S. prisons.

https://www.q13fox.com/news/texas-executes-mexican-national