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Michael Smith Virginia Execution

Michael Smith was executed by the State of Virginia for the sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Michael Smith who was just released from prison after serving time for sexual assault would attack, sexually assault and murder a woman. Michael Smith would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Michael Smith would be executed by way of the electric chair on August 31, 1986

Michael Smith More News

A man who said the devil made him rape and murder a woman has been executed in Virginia’s electric chair after spending 8 1/2 years on death row.

″Father, I am here,″ Michael Marnell Smith said just before the first of two 55-second jolts of current ran through his body Thursday night, a half hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal.

Smith, 40, who spent more time on death row than anyone else now facing execution in Virginia, died at the State Penitentiary at 11:42 p.m., said Corrections Department spokesman Wayne Farrar.

In a 5-3 decision, the nation’s highest court rejected Smith’s appeal at 11:10 p.m. Earlier in the day, federal district and appeals court judges refused to block the execution, the state’s fifth since it resumed executions in 1982 and first in more than a year. The execution was the nation’s 12th this year.

Smith was condemned for the May 23, 1977, murder of Audrey Jean Weiler, a mother of two who was attacked as she strolled by the James River on her 36th birthday. He had been out of prison for less than five months after serving three years for rape.

In an affidavit, Smith said he met Mrs. Weiler on a beach and helped her pull some thorns from her feet. He then took her to the woods, forced her to disrobe, raped her, choked her, dragged her to the beach, held her head under water, stabbed her three times and left her corpse in the river.

He blamed his crimes on the devil.

Smith appeared dazed when led into the execution chamber, then peered into the witness room, which was occupied by reporters for the first time since the resumption of executions in Virginia. He prayed from the moment he was brought in until the first surge of electricity hit him.

″I come to thee, O Lord,″ he said. ″Father, your holy spirit, accept me, O Lord, I pray.″

″Father,″ he said, ″I am here.″

The prison chaplain responded, ″God bless you,″ as the current jolted Smith’s body.

Outside the prison, about 100 people protested for and against the death penalty.

Smith’s lawyers had requested a stay of execution from the lower courts until the Supreme Court could rule on whether death sentences are applied unfairly against blacks when whites are the victims.

Michael Smith was black and his victim white.

The Supreme Court, without comment, refused to review the appeal, with Justices Harry A. Blackmun, William Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall dissenting, and John Paul Stevens not participating.

Smith had been ″pleasant, cooperative and very much in contact with reality″ as he awaited his execution, said Dwight Perry, operations officer at the penitentiary. Smith, a father of three, was visited by at least three clergymen and a brother during his final hours.

https://apnews.com/article/9eba39e2e8a5e04245421c96ab3e3778

Morris Mason Virginia Execution

Morris Mason was executed by the State of Virginia for the sexual assault and murder of an elderly woman. According to court documents Morris Mason would sexually assault, murder and then set the house on fire of the elderly victim. Morris Mason who was a serial rapist would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Morris Mason would be executed by way of the electric chair on June 25 1985

Morris Mason More News

Morris Mason, convicted in a 1978 crime spree, went calmly and silently to his death in the electric chair after efforts to block the execution because of his mental impairment failed.

Mason, a 32-year-old laborer, was led to the basement death chamber at the state penitentiary about four hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a final appeal, said prison spokeswoman Kathi King. He made no statement.

He was pronounced dead at 11:07 p.m. Tuesay, Ms. King said.

Mason was convicted of raping and murdering Margaret K. Hand, 71, who was beaten to death. Her hand was nailed to a chair and her house was set afire.

He also confessed to raping and murdering another elderly woman, raping a 12-year-old girl and maiming her 13-year-old sister, a two-week string of acts he said were prompted by voices ″telling me to destroy something, tear up something.″

The Supreme Court voted 7-2 Tuesday night against granting a stay, the fourth time justices declined to hear an appeal.

Mason’s lawyer, J. Lloyd Snook, had contended in appeals that Mason’s IQ of 66, or mildly retarded, and paranoid schizophrenia made the death penalty inappropriate. In IQ of 90 to 109 is normal.

He said Mason had the mind of a child and was unaware he was about to die.

″In my opinion, he knew all the time what was going on,″ said Toni Bair, warden of Mecklenburg Correctional Center. ″He was totally calm, very coherent, calm.″

Snook said Mason appeared ″quiet, nervous. He didn’t have a whole lot to say. He was determined to be strong.″

″The last thing he said to me was ‘Warden, I gave you my word that I would go out strong, and I’m going out strong.’ He told me that twice,″ Bair said.

Almost 200 death penalty advocates gathered outside the prison. They cheered loudly at word the execution had been carried out.

About 100 anti-death penalty protestors staged a quiet candlelight vigil.

Gov. Charles S. Robb, Mason’s last hope for a reprieve, declined to intervene, despite a telephoned appeal from an aide to U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice.

Conyers aide Julian Epstein spoke with Robb on the congressman’s behalf.

″We have been very disturbed over the whole pattern of racial discrimination ,″ he said in a telephone interview from Conyers’ Washington, D.C., office. Mason was black.

″We don’t get involved in every case, but this one seems to stand out,″ Epstein said.

He said Conyers agreed with Snook that Mason should have had an independent mental evaluation before being sentenced.

Mason’s was the third execution in the last eight months in Virginia and the fourth since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the death penalty in 1976.

https://apnews.com/article/7810c2a047380d56ef609f851dd2a788

Linwood And James Briley Executions

Linwood and James Briley were two of three brothers who during a crime spree in Virginia would leave 11 people dead and a Nation worried when they were able to escape from death row. Linwood Briley was just seventeen years old when he would murder a pregnant woman and would spend time in a juvenile detention center.

Linwood and James Briley reign of terror would begin in March of 1979 when they would kill their first victim and before they were done in October of the same year would leave ten more victims dead. Linwood and James Briley would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Linwood Briley would be executed on October 12 1984 and his brother James Briley would be executed on April 18 1985

Linwood And James Briley

There were some ominous signs in the childhood of brothers Linwood, James and Anthony Briley. Still, “they grew up in a good family,” with loving parents, according to true crime author Eric Blanding.

The Brileys, of Richmond, Virginia, had a hobby of feeding small animals to pet snakes. They also, however, were known around town for helping neighbors with any yard work that needed doing. But that belied their true nature — they ended up with at least 11 bodies to their names.

“They were just so evil,” Blanding said. “Some of the acts they committed were just unbelievable.”

The three brothers’ criminal acts escalated precipitously, according to authorities interviewed for “Killer Siblings” on Oxygen. The three brothers followed a path from thefts and drug-dealing to a series of cruel, gruesome slayings that landed all three in prison.

Linwood led his younger brothers, as well as teenage acolyte Duncan Meekins, in a gang of sorts, and Linwood claimed his first life in 1971. Then 16, Linwood shot 57-year-old Orline Christian out his back window with a rifle, while she was hanging wet laundry on a clothesline.

She died instantly, and investigators initially thought it might have been heart trouble, according to “Killer Siblings.” However, when she was being prepared for burial at the local funeral home, a keen-eyed employee noted a small hole in her dress, and dried blood.

Police traced the shot to Linwood’s window, and the 16-year-old first claimed the killing was done accidentally while he was shooting at squirrels, according to “Killer Siblings.” He would later admit that he had shot Christian deliberately, adding, “I heard she had heart problems; she would have died soon, anyway,” according to Thoughtco.

n 1979, the Brileys plotted and executed a series of robberies and burglaries — and unleashed their true, vicious natures on the people of Richmond.

On March 12 of that year, the brothers — along with Meekins — forced their way into the home of elderly couple William and Virginia Butcher. They looted the home, then tried to burn the couple alive, according to “Killer Siblings.” Luckily, Meekins tied their bonds too loosely and they were able to escape after the gang left the home in flames.

The Butchers are the only two victims of the Brileys to survive, according to Thoughtco. Their next targets wouldn’t be so lucky.

A little more than a week later, they robbed and murdered a machine serviceman in his own home, according to the Washington Post. The following month, they raped, robbed and shot to death 76-year-old Mary Gowen.

In July, Christopher Phillips, 17, merely made the mistake of hanging around the brothers’ vehicle, according to Thoughtco. The brothers dragged him to a field and beat him before Linwood performed the coup de grace with a cinderblock to the head.

In September 1979, well-liked local country-western DJ Johnny Galleher disappeared after he stepped out of a gig for a smoke, according to “Killer Siblings.” Authorities had few leads other than Gallaher’s empty vehicle turning up — until two weeks later, when his body was found, shot in the back of the head with a rifle. According to authorities interviewed on “Killer Siblings,” the Briley gang noticed Gallaher’s “shiny belt buckle,” and took his life for it; his murder would later be pinned on Linwood.

In two of the gang’s most gruesome slayings, 79-year-old Blanche Page and her boarder, Charles Garner, 59, were subjected to a home invasion by the baseball bat-wielding Brileys in October the same year. Page had her head beaten in — she was “unrecognizable,” according to authorities on “Killer Siblings.” Garner was beaten as well, and then pinned to the floor with knives, scissors and a fork, according to the Washington Post.

The gang’s final, atrocious home invasion would come on Oct. 19 1979. Pregnant Judy Barton, her partner, Harvey Wilkerson, and her 5-year-old son, Harvey, were murdered. Members of the small family were only put out of their misery after three members of the gang had each raped Judy within earshot of her partner and young son, according to the Post.

The family’s bodies were not discovered by police for three days, but a task force that was surveilling the area at the time of the murders helped quickly pin them on the Brileys and Meekins. Linwood and Meekins were arrested after a brief car chase, while James and Anthony turned themselves in, according to Thoughtco.

Authorities pushed forward with the charges they knew would stick, primarily trying to make sure the Brileys and Meekins would never walk the streets again, according to “Killer Siblings.” All four were charged in the Wilkerson, Garner and Page murders, with Anthony being sentenced to life and James and Linwood sentenced to death.

The Briley brothers had one last trick up their sleeves, however. In May 1984 — just two months before their execution date — Linwood and James led the state’s only ever successful death-row prison break, escaping the Mecklenburg Correctional Center in Virginia. The Brileys lived comfortably with friends in Philadelphia for about two weeks; during that time, Briley sightings were common, and T-shirts were even sold that jokingly displayed the logo, “I’m not one of the Briley brothers,” according to “Killer Siblings.”

One afternoon, police and FBI agents surrounded a Philadelphia home where the Brileys were barbecuing. They took them in without resistance.

In October 1984, Linwood was executed, with James’ death coming the following April, according to Thoughtco.

https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/linwood-james-anthony-briley-brothers-murder-spree-duncan-meekins

Frank Coppola Virginia Execution

Frank Coppola was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of a woman committed during a robbery. According to court documents Frank Coppola, who was a police officer, would murder a woman during a robbery. The woman would be beaten to death. Frank Coppola would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Frank Coppola would be executed by way of the electric chair which did not go well as his head and leg would catch on fire however he would be pronounced dead on August 11, 1982

Frank Coppola More News

Convicted murderer Frank Coppola, a former policeman who preferred death to Death Row, went calmly to his execution Tuesday night in Virginia’s electric chair saying, ‘take care of my family, my children.’

Coppola, who maintained his innocence but said he wanted to be executed to spare his family further embarrassment, died at 11:27 p.m. EDT, state corrections director Ray Procunier said.

Coppola became the fifth convict executed in the United States since 1976 when the Supreme Court lifted the ban on capital punishment and the first to die in Virginia’s electric chair in 20 years.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-2 ruling announced 30 minutes before Coppola’s scheduled 11 p.m. EDT execution, cleared the way for Coppola, 38, to die as he requested in a letter he sent Tuesday to Chief Justice Warren Burger. The high court’s ruling overturned a mid-afternoon stay by a federal appeals court judge.

‘I, Frank J. Coppola, do hereby … seek relief through the U.S. Supreme Court so as to bring about my execution this date,’ Coppola said in the letter.

Through the evening, about 40 curiousity seekers and some people who said they came to pray for Coppola’s soul stood against a wall across from the state Penitentiary.

On a hot, muggy night, many of the onlookers simply stood and talked quietly among themselves.

‘I just came out because it’s something I feel strongly about,’ said James Fralin, 34, a construction worker. ‘This sign says all you can say about it,’ he continued, pointing to a hand-lettered placard bearing the words ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill. There are no exceptions.’

Procunier, who witnessed the execution, said, ‘Pursuant to an order by the Circuit Court of Newport News, Frank J. Coppola was executed at 11:27 p.m. in the manner prescribed by law. Out of respect for the deceased’s family, I will make no further comment on the procedure.’

Procunier was asked if Coppola had any final words and what he had for his last meal, but the corrections chief did not comment.

ABC’s ‘Nightline’ reported that Joe Engle, of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons, walked With Coppola to the death ward. The prison activist told ABC that Coppola was calm, saying to him, ‘I love you. Please take care of my family, my children.’

Coppola was convicted of beating a Newport News woman to death in 1978 during a robbery in an attempt to make her tell where money was hidden in her home.

Gov. Charles Robb said, ‘The decision not to interfere with the order of the circuit court of Newport News was the most difficult and emotionally draining decision I have had to make as governor of Virginia.

‘While I respect the beliefs and convictions of those who oppose capital punishment under any and all circumstances, the law of the Commonwealth provides for that penalty under certain, very limited circumstances, and I support the law.’

High-intensity lights from television cameras cast eerie shadows on the white-walled Penitentiary building about 2 miles from the State Capitol.

Warden James Mitchell read the execution order to Coppola, whose head was shaved a shaved head and who wore a Fu Manchu moustache, and then escorted him to the death chamber 30 paces from his cell.

Mitchell inserted a key in a slot in the death chamber, which opened the current and at the same time activated a signal to the executioner to push a button, sending two 55-second bursts of 2,400 volts through Coppola’s body.

At about 11:50 p.m., a single-siren wail pierced the air at the Penitentiary. It was an ambulance taking Coppola’s body to the state medical examiner’s office, said corrections spokesman Gil Miller.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/08/11/Convicted-murderer-Frank-Coppola-a-former-policeman-who-preferred/5929397886400/

Robert Gleason Virginia Execution

Robert Gleason was the last person to be executed by the State of Virginia after he was sentenced to death after two prison murders. According to court documents Robert Gleason was initially sentenced to life in prison for a murder. However once behind bars he would not stop killing. Robert Gleason would murder his first cellmate in 2009. Robert Gleason would be transferred to a super max prison known as Red Onion where he would again murder another prisoner. Robert Gleason would be sentenced to death for the two murders. Gleason demanded that he would be executed and he wanted to be executed by the electric chair. On January 16, 2013 Robert Gleason would get his wish and would be executed in the electric chair.

Robert Gleason More News

Robert C. Gleason Jr. died with fists partially clenched and smoke rising from his body.

He was faceless Wednesday night, the throes of death hidden behind a thick, black mask that allowed enough space only for his nose to poke through.

Death came on his own terms: He sought execution for a pair of murders in two Southwest Virginia prisons and asked for the electric chair.

There was the customary, last-minute flurry of appeals rejected by the governor and the U.S. Supreme Court. But those weren’t his appeals. Instead, they were filed by a team of capital defense attorneys arguing Gleason’s mental incompetence and hoping for the chance to represent him.

And Gleason, like the governor and federal judges, rejected their help to the very end.

His last words in the execution chamber at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va., were cryptic.

“Well, I hope Percy ain’t going to wet the sponge. Put me on the highway to Jackson and call my Irish buddies. Pog mo thoin. God bless,” he said.

The translation of the Irish Gaelic wording is “kiss my a–.”

Death took roughly eight minutes from the time the condemned man entered the chamber.

The execution, taking place on the other side of a two-way window, was like a play that began with Gleason taking a few steps into a cinderblock room and ended with someone mumbling a “time of death.”

It culminated with someone drawing a blue curtain across the witness room window and a prison official telling the witnesses it was time to leave.

Robert Gleason died violently as more than 1,000 volts of electricity jolted his body in a pair of 90-second cycles.

He smiled to the room full of witnesses as soon as he stepped into the execution chamber and winked at his spiritual advisor, who was sitting in the crowd. He gave a thumbs up as he sat in the chair.

Robert Gleason wore flip-flops, a blue shirt and dark blue pants with the right pant leg cut off at the knee. A skullcap was placed on his head and a brine-soaked sea sponge was strapped to his right tattoo-covered calf.

A pair of cables snaked up along the electric chair to the top of the skullcap and along the ground onto the floor to his calves.

A guard stood with a red phone in his hand that was a direct line to the governor’s office. But there would be no intervention.

At 9 p.m., a man with the phone nodded for the executioner to begin. One man turned a key in a wall to activate the system and another man in an adjacent room started the electrocution.

Gleason’s body spasmed with each series of jolts, smoke rising from the mask.

The jolts were administered at 9:03, and after five long minutes of silence a doctor in a white coat entered from a side room, put a stethoscope to his tattooed chest and then nodded that he was dead.

He then pronounced the time of death as 9:08 p.m.

Sitting in another room to view the execution was Kim Strickland, the mother of the last victim, Aaron Alexander Cooper.

“May God have mercy on his soul,” she said Monday of her son’s killer. “I have been and will be praying for his family throughout this ordeal.”

In a letter sent to her, Robert Gleason described Cooper’s death and noted that he was holding on to the mother’s address.

“Everyone will be O.K. if I get the death penalty,” he wrote.

Strickland, fearing his reach beyond prison walls, has moved several times since her son died and remains on the run.

“A very reliable source told me I was not safe and I have moved four or five times,” she testified during a 2011 sentencing hearing. “I have no sense of home anymore.”

Now penniless, she lives out of her car and shelters.

Amy Taylor, the mother of one of Gleason’s children, said she will miss him.

“He will always be remembered by those who truly knew him as a very fun, loving, compassionate person who cared more for those he loved than he ever did for himself,” she said.

Robert Gleason spent his last two hours with his spiritual advisor, Tim “Bam Bam” Spradling, a former biker buddy who now preaches at a Richmond church.

“We talked about how my life went one way and his went in the opposite direction,” Spradling said.

In those last hours, Robert Gleason cried for his victims and asked God for forgiveness, he added.

No one seems to know the real reason Gleason demanded execution. In court, he said it was to teach younger relatives that murder comes with severe consequences.

Yet, a case worker’s report from 2011 suggests that Gleason had a mental history filled with feelings of paranoia, anxiety and depression, ultimately leading to exhaustion and a need to escape. Life in prison, according to the report, would simply be too intolerable.

Initially, Gleason earned life in prison without parole for shooting to death truck driver Michael Kent Jamerson on May 8, 2007, to cover up the tracks of a methamphetamine ring already eyed by federal investigators.

Robert Gleason, during his 2011 sentencing hearing, said they had stopped by a wooded area in Amherst County and he pulled a pistol from Jamerson’s own belt, told him to get right with God, and began shooting.

A turkey hunter found Jamerson’s body the next day. A Liberty University student fishing along the bank of the James River, about three miles from the body, found the gun several days later.

Two years later, Gleason ended up in a cell with 63-year-old Harvey Gray Watson Jr. at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap. Watson was serving a 100-year sentence for killing a man and wounding two others when he fired a shotgun into his neighbor’s Lynchburg home in 1983.

The older inmate was mentally impaired and known for such antics as singing nonsensical tunes throughout the night and drinking his own urine. Gleason tired of him after about a week and tied him up, beat and strangled him on May 8, 2009 – the two-year anniversary of Jamerson’s murder.

Guards didn’t notice the body in the cell for 15 hours.

Soon after that, Gleason threatened to kill again unless given the death penalty.

Then, on July 28, 2010, he strangled convicted carjacker Aaron Alexander Cooper, 26, in the recreation yard of the supermax security Red Onion State Prison near Pound.

It was done with ripped apart strips of braided bed sheet threaded through the chain link fence separating the two inmates.

https://heraldcourier.com/news/robert-gleason-got-death-the-way-he-wanted-it/article_539a0bea-602d-11e2-9e30-001a4bcf6878.html