pennsylvania death row | My Crime Library

Dustin Briggs Pennsylvania Death Row

Dustin Briggs was sentenced to death by the State of Pennsylvania for the murders of two police officers. According to court documents Dustin Briggs would open fire killing the two police officers who were attempting to serve a warrant. Dustin Briggs would be arrested days later and would later be convicted and sentenced to death. Dustin Briggs death sentence was vacated at one point however he remains on Pennsylvania death row

Dustin Briggs 2022 Information

Parole Number: 583GG
Age: 44
Date of Birth: 01/13/1977
Race/Ethnicity: WHITE
Height: 5′ 08″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: MEDIUM
Current Location: PHOENIX

Dustin Briggs More News

A judge has vacated the death sentence of a man convicted of killing two Bradford County sheriff’s deputies.

The ruling generated both outrage and joy.

Dustin Briggs, formerly of Wells Township, was convicted by a Bradford County jury in 2006 for the March 31, 2004 shooting deaths of deputies Michael VanKuren, 36, of Warren Center, and Christopher M. Burgert, 30, of Sayre.

The deputies were shot and killed while trying to serve two warrants at Briggs’ home on Congdon Road in Wells Township. Briggs was caught several days later after a massive manhunt.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office prosecuted the case after then-Bradford County District Attorney Stephen Downs recused himself because of his close relationship with the sheriff’s office.

Centre County Judge David Grine, who was assigned to hear Briggs’ appeal, recently set aside the death penalty based on a technicality, according to current Bradford County District Attorney Daniel Barrett, who received notice of the decision.

“The petition asserts there was one death penalty decision given to the jury by court instructions, which would seem to be practical at the time,” Barrett said. “As far as factors regarding the death penalty, there were multiple victims and they were police officers. The (petition) said that process was improper. There should have been a separate decision on imposing the death penalty for the murder of each officer.”

Instead of the death penalty, Briggs’ sentence was changed to life in prison without parole, Barrett said.

Briggs’ petition also asked that the conviction itself be overturned. That aspect is being handled in a separate appeal, Barrett said.

In the meantime, Dustin Briggs is serving his sentence at the Greene correctional facility, near Waynesburg.

It’s been more than 20 years since Pennsylvania executed an inmate, and for practical purposes the only change is that Dustin Briggs will now be housed with the general prison population rather than the restricted living arrangements where death row inmates serve, Barrett said.

The ruling is just the first step toward a new trial and hopefully exoneration for Briggs, according to his sister, Sara Seymour.

“Our family is overjoyed at this turn of events. The judge’s decision to invalidate Dustin’s death sentence gives us hope of a new trial,” Seymour said.

“Dustin’s removal from death row is the first step of his removal from prison altogether. We are confident that his lawyers are working toward his release,” she said. “Beside the fact that over 30 of his civil rights were violated during the trial, and the widespread opinion that the trial should never have been held in Bradford County, is the fact that Dustin did not commit these crimes.”

But the judge’s ruling did not sit well with the law enforcement community, including Bradford County Sheriff C.J. Walters, who knew and worked with both Burgert and VanKuren.

“Obviously it’s shocking news to all of us and I think it’s a bad decision by the judge,” Walters said. “There’s a system in place for trial by a jury by your peers and he was convicted. They made the decision for a death sentence and now because of a technicality, a judge reversed the decision. It’s not fair to the system. He got a fair trial, but because of a technicality, a judge undermined what the jury’s contentions were. It’s shocking and it’s sad. Obviously there’s some anger because it’s not fair

https://www.stargazette.com/story/news/public-safety/2017/04/12/death-sentence-vacated-dustin-briggs/100366708/

Richard Boxley Pennsylvania Death Row

Richard Boxley was sentenced to death by the State of Pennsylvania for the murder of Jarvay Bolton. According to court documents Richard Boxley and Jose Busanet made a plan to murder the victim over a drug deal. Richard Boxley and Jose Busanet would fatally shoot the victim in broad daylight. Jose Busanet and Richard Boxley would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Richard Boxley 2022 Information

Parole Number: EL5206
Age: 53
Date of Birth: 04/27/1968
Race/Ethnicity: BLACK
Height: 5′ 10″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: MEDIUM
Current Location: PHOENIX

Richard Boxley More News

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence for a New York City man who shot and killed a Reading man in broad daylight in a drug dispute in July 1997.

Richard Boxley, 36, had appealed a Sept. 28, 2004, death sentence that Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl ordered after a jury convicted Boxley and sentenced him to death.

It was the second time Boxley was sentenced to death for killing Jarvay “Jason” Bolton, 24, of 1001 Chestnut St. on July 11, 1997.

Boxley was first convicted in 2000 of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, but the Supreme Court overturned the sentence, ruling Judge Stephen B. Lieberman did not let the lawyers question each potential juror in detail.

According to testimony:

Richard Boxley plotted with Jose Busanet of Reading, also known as Tito Black, to kill Bolton. They went with Wilson Melendez, a friend of Busanet’s, to the 100 block of South Sixth Street in the middle of the afternoon.

When Bolton approached, Boxley and Busanet began firing. Bolton died of gunshot wounds to his chest.

Busanet, 31, was convicted and sentenced to death.

He is on death row in the State Correctional Institution at Greensburg, Greene County.

Melendez, 26, is serving three to six years in state prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit the murder.

http://www2.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=93686

Jose Busanet 2022 Information

Parole Number: 046CM
Age: 49
Date of Birth: 12/25/1972
Race/Ethnicity: HISPANIC
Height: 5′ 07″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: LIGHT
Current Location: PHOENIX

Herbert Blakeney Pennsylvania Death Row

Herbert Blakeney was sentenced to death by the State of Pennsylvania for the murder of his fourteen month old son. According to court documents Herbert Blakeney would stab his estranged wife before slitting the throat of his fourteen month old son. Herbert Blakeney would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Herbert Blakeney 2022 Information

Parole Number: 8907W
Age: 55
Date of Birth: 04/24/1966
Race/Ethnicity: BLACK
Height: 6′ 01″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: MEDIUM
Current Location: PHOENIX

Herbert Blakeney More News

A deadlock on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has thwarted the latest attempt by a Harrisburg man to get off death row for the murder of his 14-month-old son.

That deadlock was announced Friday by an evenly-split panel of the high court that had weighed the most recent appeal by 52-year-old Herbert Blakeney.

In that appeal, Blakeney tried to use the email scandal that prompted the resignation of former Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin as a lever to overturn a Dauphin County judge’s decision to dismiss his most recent attempt to void his first-degree murder conviction and death sentence for the February 2000 murder of his son Basil.

Police said Blakeney stabbed his estranged wife, then cut his son’s throat with a butcher knife as a city police officer yelled at him to release the child. Blakeney only released the boy’s body when the officer shot him.

The issue that deadlocked the Supreme Court was whether to accept Blakeney’s argument that “new evidence” in the form of the Eakin email scandal should override county Judge John F. Cherry’s finding that Blakeney’s latest appeal was untimely filed. The Supreme Court’s deadlock on the matter means Cherry’s denial stands.

As Justice David N. Wecht noted in an opinion on the case, Blakeney, who is black and a Muslim, argued on appeal that emails found in Eakin’s possession that were deemed racist undermined Eakin’s ability to fairly weigh Blakeney’s earlier appeals of his murder conviction. Eakin did participate with the rest of the court in a 2008 denial of a Blakeney appeal.

Blakeney based his latest appeal on what he claimed was newly-discovered evidence provided by an October 2015 story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. That media outlet and others reported on the existence of the Eakin emails. An investigation ensued and Eakin resigned in March 2016.

Since he couldn’t have known about the Eakin emails, or any prejudice they might have caused to his case, before October 2015, his latest appeal should have been accepted by Cherry, Blakeney argued.

He contended as well that the county district attorney’s office should have been disqualified from involvement in his appeals because former DA Ed Marsico and current DA Fran Chardo received some of the same emails as Eakin. Marsico and Chardo provided sworn affidavits stating they neither responded to nor forwarded those emails, Wecht noted.

The Supreme Court tied 2-2 on Blakeney’s arguments.

Wecht and Justice Christine L. Donohue concluded Blakeney’s latest appeal was not untimely filed and should be reconsidered because of the newly discovered evidence of the Eakin emails. Justices Kevin M. Dougherty and Sallie Updyke Mundy disagreed

Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor and Justices Max Baer and Debra Todd, who were on the high court when the Eakin email scandal arose, did not participate in the consideration of the Blakeney appeal.

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2018/09/deadlock_on_pa_supreme_court_f.html

Richard Baumhammers Pennsylvania Death Row

Richard Baumhammers is a spree killer who was sentenced to death by the State of Pennsylvania for the murders of five people. According to court documents Richard Baumhammers would shoot and kill five people and leave another person paralyzed in what police determined was a racial attack on April 28, 2000. Richard Baumhammers would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Richard Baumhammers 2022 Information

Parole Number: 477FI
Age: 56
Date of Birth: 05/17/1965
Race/Ethnicity: WHITE
Height: 6′ 02″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: LIGHT
Current Location: PHOENIX

Richard Baumhammers Other News

On a cloudy Friday afternoon 20 years ago Tuesday, an unemployed immigration lawyer went on a killing spree. It started next door to his parents’ Mt. Lebanon home, where he killed his Jewish neighbor. He went on to shoot five more people, all ethnic or racial minorities.

Richard Baumhammers, 54, is on Pennsylvania’s death row for the April 28, 2000, murders. His attorneys argued that he suffered from mental illness and committed the crimes while he was delusional, something prosecutors successfully disputed.

At about 1 p.m. that day, Baumhammers killed Anita Gordon, 63, his next-door neighbor, and set fire to her house. He then traveled to her synagogue in Scott, Beth El Congregation, and vandalized the building, shooting out its front windows and painting swastikas on the facade.

Baumhammers proceeded to a Scott grocery store, where he killed Anil Thukar, 31, and left Sandeep Patel paralyzed from the neck down. Patel died in 2007 at the age of 32.

Next he killed Ji-Ye Sun, 34, and Thao Pham, 27, at the Ya Fei Chinese Cuisine Restaurant in Robinson before driving to C.S. Kim Karate in Center, Beaver County, where he killed 22-year-old Garry Lee, a African-American man from Aliquippa..

Police in Beaver County nabbed him in Ambridge after the Center shooting.

He was convicted in May 2001 of homicide during a trial in Allegheny County and sentenced to death.

Retired Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh, who served as co-prosecutor, said Baumhammers believed he was starting a war.

“His motive, I think, was clear: This is the beginning of a race war,” Berosh said. “All of his targets were minority groups. Somehow in his head he thought he could trigger this racial war. It was white versus everybody else, and everybody else against the whites and whites would prevail.”

Baumhammers isn’t set to be executed anytime soon because of a statewide moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania, much to the chagrin of some people who knew the victims and those in law enforcement who responded to the crime.

“It’s disappointing when so many people are left just kind of holding this wreckage in their hands and he’s sitting in jail, OK,” is how Jennifer Thomas puts it.

Thomas and her husband, George, live in Beaver. George Thomas was at the Center karate studio where Baumhammers shot and killed Lee, who was his best friend, his wife said.

Her husband won’t talk about what happened that day, Jennifer Thomas said.

“It’s something that’s always on our minds. It’s something that we think about an awful lot,” she said.

“It’s frustrating. I never would say I hope that person should die, but when you look at the situation and the heartache he caused, it’s hard to not think there’s room for justice in that situation,” she said.

Center police Chief Barry Kramer has written two letters to Gov. Tom Wolf seeking for justice to be meted out in the Baumhammers case.

“By eliminating the death penalty, the void of closure for victims will grow and never be filled. We believe that we must clearly demonstrate to society that murder is an intolerable crime that will be appropriately punished,” Kramer wrote the governor in 2015.

Kramer didn’t receive a response to that letter. He sent a similar letter in 2016, with no response.

The governor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment for this story.

All of Baumhammers’ appeals have been denied.

Berosh said there’s no question that Baumhammers, whom he considers “totally evil,” deserved the death sentence.

“In my opinion we asked 12 of Allegheny County’s tried and true to give him the death penalty, and they did,” he said. “For me to turn around today and say, ‘No, don’t do that,’ would be a breach of trust in what we asked the jurors to do in the first place.”

Berosh said the most striking thing was how Baumhammers planned the crimes.

“This was no, ‘OK, I got a gun. I’m going to get in a car and see what I can do.’ The planning was almost meticulous,” he said. “I’m convinced he knew exactly how police and emergency services would respond. He knew exactly what direction he had to go and what targets he wanted to hit. There is no doubt in my mind — you can’t prove it — that his next target was going to be the Ambridge synagogue.”

A pizza shop employee next to the karate studio in Center jotted down the license plate of the Jeep Baumhammers was driving and Kramer put out the alert, Kramer said.

When it came over the police radio, it was the start of then-Aliquippa police officer John Frantangeli’s shift.

Because Baumhammers was from the Pittsburgh area, police put out a dragnet on routes south. Frantangeli was sent to Route 51 at the Ambridge-Aliquippa bridge.

“I was actually kind of upset,” Frantangeli, now a Beaver officer, said, because he didn’t think Baumhammers would have used that route.

“Twenty minutes later, he comes driving right up to me,” Frantangeli said.

He verified the plate but refrained from pulling Baumhammers over immediately, awaiting backup in Ambridge. They crossed the bridge and went through two red lights before Ambridge police and Frantangeli converged on the Jeep.

An Ambridge officer unbuckled Baumhammers’ seatbelt and Frantangeli handcuffed him.

They found about 20 live rounds of ammunition in his pockets, and in the backseat of the Jeep there were several Molotov cocktails, Frantangeli said.

“I remember it like yesterday, every time I drive through Ambridge,” he said. “Thank God he complied.”

https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny/baumhammers-killing-spree-was-20-years-ago/

Orlando Baez Pennsylvania Death Row

Orlando Baez was sentenced to death by the State of Pennsylvania for the murder of Janice Williams. According to court documents Orlando Baez would stab to death Janice Williams inside of her apartment. The murder would go unsolved for a number of years before Orlando Baez was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Orlando Baez 2022 Information

Parole Number: 661AH
Age: 60
Date of Birth: 08/10/1961
Race/Ethnicity: HISPANIC
Height: 5′ 08″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: LIGHT
Current Location: PHOENIX

Orlando Baez More News

On the night of January 5, 1987, Orlando Baez and Henry Gibson (“Gibson”) visited Janice Williams in her apartment on East King Street in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Gibson testified that when he and appellant first arrived, they observed the victim’s two children asleep on the couch. Subsequently, appellant asked to speak to Williams in the bedroom. Gibson, who remained in the living room, testified that approximately fifteen[720 A.2d 719]minutes later, he heard loud voices, a “thump,” and the victim screaming, “he’s killing me.” Gibson immediately ran to the bedroom, where he saw appellant standing over the victim, stabbing her repeatedly with a knife. Gibson testified that both appellant and the victim were nude from the waist down. Upon noticing Gibson in the room, appellant threatened Gibson that if he did not leave, appellant would kill him as well. Gibson immediately exited the apartment.

Approximately five minutes after Gibson exited the apartment and began walking towards his home, Orlando Baez caught up to him and tried to give him a knife with a broken handle. When Gibson refused to take the knife, appellant threw it down a nearby sewer drain. Appellant and Gibson walked together to appellant’s residence, where appellant further threatened Gibson that if he ever said anything about what he had seen, Orlando Baez would implicate Gibson in the murder.

The next morning, the victim’s young children discovered their mother’s dead body and summoned a nearby pedestrian. After entering the apartment and observing the victim, the pedestrian called the police. The police arrived shortly thereafter and found the victim on her bed. An autopsy was conducted, revealing that the victim had suffered blunt force trauma injuries to her head and had been stabbed fifty-eight times in her chest, back and abdomen, fifteen times in her face, and twenty-eight times in her torso. Also, her throat had been slit.

On the front door of the victim’s apartment, Lancaster County police officers collected a bloody fingerprint sample. Expert testimony established a match between this fingerprint and fingerprints that had been taken from appellant. During the autopsy of the victim, a pubic hair was recovered from the victim’s vagina. Expert testimony established that this hair shared the same “microscopic characteristics” as hair samples taken from appellant in 1988 and 1992,³ and that it was “very unlikely” to find two individuals who shared the same microscopic characteristics. The testimony also established that the hair sample from the victim’s vagina was inconsistent with Gibson’s hair type.

In late 1991, over four years after the murder had occurred, Gibson informed police that Orlando Baez had killed the victim. Gibson testified that he reported the murder at that late date because he was tired of being threatened and afraid. In February of 1992, in spite of appellant’s repeated denials of involvement and denials that he had ever been in the victim’s apartment, appellant was arrested and charged with the murder. At the time of his arrest, appellant again denied that he had ever been in the victim’s apartment or that he even knew the victim. However, at trial, appellant testified that he had engaged in consensual intercourse with the victim but that Gibson had subsequently killed her.

https://www.leagle.com/decision/19981431720a2d71111388