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James Hutchins North Carolina Execution

James Hutchins was executed by the State of North Carolina for the murders of 3 police officers. According to court documents James Hutchins would have an argument with his daughters that turned violent and the police were called. The first two responding officers Captain Roy Huskey, 42, and Deputy Owen Messersmith, 58 would be shot and killed. James Hutchins would take off and be later pulled over by a North Carolina State Trooper who did not know that he was wanted for the two murders. State Trooper Robert L. “Pete” Peterson, 37, would be shot and killed. James Hutchins would later be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. James Hutchins would be executed on March 16, 1984 by lethal injection

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James W. Hutchins was executed by lethal injection early this morning for the slayings of three law officers almost five years ago.

Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. had refused on Thursday to halt the execution. Mr. Hutchins, who had asked his lawyers to drop all appeals, was the 15th convict put to death since the United States Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, and the third to die by lethal injection. The latest occurred Wednesday when James David Autry was executed in Texas.

Mr. Hutchins, 54 years old, visited with his wife, Geneva, on Thursday at Central Prison in Raleigh. He also met with a minister from his native Rutherford County, where the slayings occurred after Mr. Hutchins and his daughter, Charlotte, argued over the amount of alcohol in a bowl of punch for a high school graduation party.

A Department of Correction spokesman, Patty McQuillan, said the condemned man twice refused to order a last meal, but ate a steak sandwich and drank a soft drink about 1 P.M. He spent the evening reading a newspaper and 14 letters he had received, including one from his son, Jamie, she said. He also visited with his wife again and called Jamie and spoke to him for about two minutes.

The last execution in North Carolina was on Oct. 27, 1961, when Theodore Boykin went to the gas chamber for the rape and murder of a Duplin County housewife.

Mr. Hutchins selected as his method of execution a lethal injection of drugs, sodium thiopental, to induce a deep sleep and the paralytic drug procuronium bromide to cause death.

He was sentenced to die in September 1979 fort the shooting deaths of Sheriff’s Deputy Owen Messersmith and Highway Patrol Trooper Robert L. Peterson. He also received a life sentence for the death of another deputy, Roy Huskey. The deputies were killed answering a call for help from Mr. Hutchins’s daughter. The trooper was killed as he pursued James Hutchins as he fled in a car after the killings.

Ronald O’Bryan Texas Execution

Ronald O’Bryan was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of his son. According to court documents Ronald O’Bryan would take out a large life insurance policy on his son and waited for Halloween. On Halloween Ronald O’Bryan son would die after eating a candy that was laced with poison. Soon police would figure out that Ronald O’Bryan was responsible and he would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Ronald O’Bryan would be executed on March 31, 1984 by lethal injection.

Ronald O’Bryan More News

They say a little rain never hurt anyone. So, when it started drizzling on the night of Halloween 1974, Ronald Clark O’Bryan decided he’d still take his children trick-or-treating. The family only ventured into a few neighborhoods before heading home. Tragically, by the end of the night, O’Bryan’s 8-year-old son, Timothy, would be more than hurt. At bedtime, the boy collapsed from unbearable stomach pain and, on the way to the hospital, died. Authorities determined that he had ingested cyanide-laced candy. Days later, they arrested O’Bryan for the murder of his son.

A&E True Crime explores a case that rattled the nation—and the legacy of the man who killed Halloween.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Ronald Clark O’Bryan lived with his wife Daynene and two children, Timothy and Elizabeth, in Deer Park, Texas, a middle-class suburb of Houston. He worked as an optician and served as a deacon at a Baptist church, where he sang in the choir and oversaw the parochial bus program. Those who knew O’Bryan considered him a model citizen. One pastor described O’Bryan as “a good, Christian man and an above-average father.”

In reality, O’Bryan had difficulty holding down a job. He was employed by 21 different companies over a 10-year period and fired from each for negligence or fraudulent behavior. In the fall of 1974, 30-year-old O’Bryan was on the brink of being fired again after his employer, Texas State Optical, suspected him of stealing money. His take-home salary of $150 a week barely covered food and rent, and it was later discovered that he was more than $100,000 in debt. He had defaulted on several bank loans and his car was on the verge of being repossessed.

Whether out of greed or desperation, or both, O’Bryan concocted a twisted plan, one that would alleviate his financial woes and even allow him to live a more “comfortable” life. He’d carry it out on Halloween 1974.

An Evil Far Scarier Than Ghosts and Goblins

October 31, 1974 began like any other Halloween night. Although O’Bryan had never shown a real interest in Halloween before, this year he was eager to take his children trick-or-treating. Jim Bates, a family friend, and his two children joined the O’Bryan family for the evening excursion.

At one house, the children went to the door but received no response. O’Bryan remained behind the group. After a minute or so, he caught up with them holding five giant Pixy Stix—a sweet and sour powdered candy that came in a straw-like tube—claiming that the neighbors were actually home and handing out expensive treats. When they arrived back at the Bates’ house, O’Bryan gave each of the four children one candy and then handed the last one to a random trick-or-treater who knocked on his door.

Before bed, O’Bryan told his children they could have one piece of candy. Timothy decided on the Pixy Stix. The boy complained that the candy tasted bitter, so O’Bryan gave him Kool-Aid to help wash it down. “Thirty seconds after I left Tim’s room, I heard him cry to me, ‘Daddy, daddy, my stomach hurts,’” O’Bryan later told police. “He was in the bathroom convulsing, vomiting and gasping and then he suddenly went limp.” Timothy died en route to the hospital less than an hour after eating the candy.

When Timothy’s body was brought to the morgue, the medical examiner recalled the scent of almonds coming from the boy’s mouth, often a telltale sign of cyanide poisoning. An autopsy later confirmed that Timothy had consumed enough potassium cyanide to kill two or three grown men. Police were able to retrieve the other four Pixy Stix—all of which were uneaten—and determined that someone had replaced the top two inches of each with granules of cyanide.

Investigators had O’Bryan and Bates retrace their steps from Halloween night. O’Bryan gave conflicting accounts as to which house handed out the poisoned candy. They soon learned about O’Bryan’s financial problems and discovered he had taken out multiple life insurance policies on his children. They also found a piece of adding machine tape. On it, O’Bryan had written down the amount of each of his bills. The total came to almost the exact amount he stood to collect from the insurance proceeds.

As police dug deeper, they also learned that O’Bryan had inquired with several chemical companies on where to buy cyanide and jokingly asked how much it would take to kill a person. They found a pocketknife in O’Bryan’s home with candy residue on it, suggesting how the candy might have been contaminated. Although O’Bryan played the part of a grieving father and maintained his innocence, after failing a polygraph, he was arrested on November 5, 1974 and charged with Timothy’s murder.

“I am not able to imagine a crime more reprehensible than someone killing his own child for money,” Clyde DeWitt, a former assistant district attorney in Houston who worked on the case, tells A&E True Crime.

Ronald Clark O’ Bryan’s Conviction and Appeals

According to Joni Johnston, a forensic psychologist and private investigator, poisoners as a group typically lack empathy, evidenced by the premeditated nature in which they kill, and the cold, calculating strategy they often use. “[Poisoning] is also an instrument for someone who is kind of cunning and sneaky, not somebody who is going to be physically or verbally aggressive. They are also more likely to be polite behind the scenes and, as a result, they tend to fool people,” Johnston tells A&E True Crime.

But O’Bryan’s days of fooling people were over. On June 3, 1975, after less than an hour of deliberations, a Harris County jury convicted O’Bryan of murder and sentenced him to death.

After being found guilty, O’Bryan appealed his case multiple times, twice to the Supreme Court. “Back then, the constitutional issues surrounding the death penalty were far less settled than is the case now. O’Bryan’s attorney had quite a bit to work with,” says DeWitt.

DeWitt wrote the brief for O’Bryan’s final appeal in 1979. “The facts were extensive and horrible. As I recall, the last sentence of my oral argument to the Court of Criminal Appeals was something like, ‘If these facts do not support the jury’s death sentence, there never will be facts that will,’” says Dewitt, who says he has since developed misgivings about the death penalty.

In the end, all appeals were denied, and O’Bryan was executed by lethal injection on March 31, 1984 at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. “What is about to transpire in a few moments is wrong… I would forgive all who have taken part in any way in my death,” O’Bryan’s last words read.

Ronald Clark O’Bryan’s Haunting Legacy

O’Bryan, now known by the nicknames “The Man Who Killed Halloween” and “The Candy Man,” never confessed to his crimes, but there are theories as to why he chose Halloween and poisoned candy to carry out his murder.

“It’s thought that he was aware of the urban legends about Halloween poisoners, and cynically assumed that his use of cyanide-laced candy would deflect suspicion from him to some anonymous boogeyman,” David Skal, a cultural expert on Halloween and author of Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond, tells A&E True Crime.

Nearly 50 years later, O’Bryan’s legacy continues to haunt those familiar with the case. “I spent a month of my life working on it,” says DeWitt. “It is burned into my brain, as you might imagine.”

In a 2004 interview, former Harris County Assistant District Attorney Mike Hinton said, “[O’Bryan is] the man that ruined Halloween for the whole world.”

Skal says that despite O’Bryan’s horrific crime, Halloween shouldn’t be feared. “There is no general correlation in America between the holiday and increased crime. In particular, the widespread fear of poisoned or booby-trapped candy is an urban legend without a real basis.”

Elmo Sonnier Louisiana Execution

Elmo Sonnier was executed by the State of Louisiana for the murder of a couple. According to court documents Elmo Sonnier and his brother Eddie Sonnier would pretend to be law enforcement officers and pulled up to the young couple on a local lovers lane. The young couple would be brought to a remote location where the young woman was sexually assaulted by both men before the couple were murdered. Elmo Sonnier and Eddie Sonnier both would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Elmo Sonnier would be executed by way of the electric chair on May 5 1984. Eddie Sonnier was later resentenced to life and would die in prison in 2013

Elmo Sonnier More News

lmo Patrick Sonnier, convicted of murdering a teenage couple in a sugar cane field in New Iberia, was electrocuted early Thursday after telling the father of one of the victims, “I ask you to have forgiveness.”

Lloyd LeBlanc, who witnessed the execution, nodded and said, “Yes.”

Sonnier, 34, was then strapped into the electric chair, executed, and pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m. by the local coroner.

He was convicted of the slayings of Loretta Bourque, 18, and her fiance, David LeBlanc, 16. Each was shot three times in the head on Nov. 5, 1977.

Sonnier was the third person executed in Louisiana in four months. Robert Wayne Williams was electrocuted Dec. 14 for killing a Baton Rouge supermarket guard, becoming the first person executed in Louisiana since 1961. Johnny Taylor Jr. was put to death Feb. 29 for stabbing a Kenner man to death in a shopping center parking lot.

Sonnier was one of two men scheduled for execution Thursday. Arthur Frederick Goode II faced death at 6 a.m. in Florida’s electric chair for raping and strangling 6-year-old Jason Verdow.

Sonnier was the 17th man executed since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976. Goode’s execution would mark the first time two inmates have been executed on the same day since the court lifted the ban.

State prison warden Ross Maggio said Sonnier spent his last day with Sister Helen Prejean, a New Orleans nun who serves as his spiritual adviser, and with a female friend who is a lawyer but is not involved in his case.

The condemned man ate a steak dinner and was kept up to date as five courts turned down his 11th-hour pleas for a stay.

As he was led into the execution chamber, he looked at LeBlanc and said, “Mr. LeBlanc, I can understand the way you feel. I have no hatred in my heart, and as I leave this world, I ask God to forgive what…I have done.”

He then asked LeBlanc’s forgiveness.

Immediately after, Godfrey Bourque, the father of the other victim, who also witnessed the execution, said, “He didn’t ask me.”

Both fathers sat expressionless, with their arms crossed, as the execution was carried out. They declined to talk to reporters afterward.

Sonnier’s last words were addressed to Prejean. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too,” she replied.

Sonnier, wearing blue jeans and a blue T-shirt, was then strapped into the death chair. Witnesses said he appeared to be smiling.

At 12:07, his body was jolted with 2,000 volts of electricity for 20 seconds, followed by 500 volts for 10 seconds. The sequence was repeated.

There was no movement after the second jolt.

The way was cleared for the execution Wednesday when the five courts turned down a plea to stop it. The U.S. Supreme Court, the last of the five, turned Sonnier down only five minutes after his attorneys filed their petition.

Gov. Edwin W. Edwards then decided not to intervene, telephoning the condemned man to convey his decision personally.

In his appeal, Sonnier’s attorney William Quigley said a former Angola inmate has told him he heard Sonnier’s brother confess to the crime.

Quigley said he received a call “out of the blue” Wednesday morning from Richard Silvestri, who was in Angola from 1978 to 1981 and was at one time assigned to a cell next to the one occupied by Eddie Sonnier, who is serving a life sentence for the slayings of the teen-age couple.

Silvestri said he could testify that Eddie Sonnier admitted to him that he, and not his brother, was the trigger man in the slayings. Eddie Sonnier had written a letter to Edwards admitting he fired the shots and asking that Edwards spare Elmo Sonnier’s life.

The information on Silvestri was filed with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court after three other courts had rejected earlier appeals to delay the execution.

State District Judge Thomas Bienvenue, the state Supreme Court and U.S. District Judge John Shaw all refused to stop the execution. But Quigley said that when those courts ruled they did not have the new information.

The 5th Circuit, which was given the new information, denied the stay request Wednesday evening.

The Supreme Court also rejected the bid without comment on a 6-2 vote. Justices Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan dissented as they always do in death penalty cases and Justice William Rehnquist did not participate.

The appeals all centered on the question of who pulled the trigger when Bourque and LeBlanc were killed. There was no question of whether the Sonnier brothers were involved in the crime, only which one acted as the trigger man.

Elmo and Eddie, 27, were both sentenced to die for the deaths, but the state Supreme Court changed Eddie’s sentence to life in prison because trial testimony indicated he only held the flashlight while his brother shot the youths to death.

Prosecutors said the two pretended to be law enforcement officers, abducted the couple from a lonely lovers lane near New Iberia and drove them more than 20 miles to a remote sugar cane field, where both raped the girl while the boy was handcuffed to a tree.

Both teen-agers were murdered, shot three times each in the back of the head with a .22-caliber rifle.

Although Eddie initially was given the death penalty, he managed to “give it back,” as he put it, by claiming he did not pull the trigger. It was after his sentence was reduced to life in prison that he first said he was the trigger man.

A state district court, however, did not believe him when he testified in Elmo’s trial. Elmo was sentenced to die for the crime.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/angel/articles/timespicayune45.html

Arthur Goode Florida Execution

Arthur Goode was executed by the State of Florida for the sexual assault and murder of a nine year old boy. According to court documents Arthur Goode had been arrested and convicted of molesting two children however he was sent to a State mental hospital. Arthur Goode would flee from the hospital and soon after would sexually assault and murder nine year old Jason VerDow. Before he could be arrested Arthur Goode would kidnap another boy who he brought to Washington DC. While in Washington Goode would kidnap another boy who he later murdered. Arthur Goode would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Arthur Goode would be executed by way of the electric chair on April 5 1984

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Arthur Frederick Goode III, the former Hyattsville resident convicted of killing a small boy in Florida and another in Fairfax County, died in the electric chair in Florida State Prison yesterday after tearfully apologizing to his parents and expressing remorse for what he had done.

Goode, 30, received the death penalty for the murder of 9-year-old Jason Verdow of Cape Coral, Fla., in 1976. Ten days after committing the crime, he raped and killed 10-year-old Kenneth Dawson of Falls Church, for which he received a life sentence in Virginia.

Goode had said in interviews and letters to the parents of his victims that he was proud he killed the boys and would continue to molest and kill if he were released. But as he was strapped into the electric chair at the state prison in Starke, his tone became somber

“I want to apologize to my parents,” he said, his voice trailing off and tears welling in his eyes. “I have remorse for the two boys I murdered. It’s difficult for me to show it.”

Goode was executed less than six hours after Elmo Patrick Sonnier, 35, was electrocuted in Angola, La., for the November 1977 killing of two teen-aged sweethearts abducted from a lovers’ lane.

Yesterday was the first time two persons have been executed on the same day since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Goode was the 18th person executed in the United States since 1976 and the seventh person executed this year.

Michael Dawson, whose son’s body was found March 20, 1976, in a wooded area near Tysons Corner, had requested “a front-row seat” at Goode’s execution but was turned down by Florida officials.

Dawson learned of Goode’s death at 7:30 yesterday morning while listening to the radio at his Falls Church home. He spoke with the superintendent of Florida State Prison, Richard Dugger, a few hours later.

“He told me it probably would have done me more harm than good to have been down there to witness it,” Dawson said. “But I don’t know. I lost something. I don’t have the words to express it, the hurt, but I feel a little bit better this morning.

“At least I won’t have to hear his mouth and see his mouth anymore running on the television,” Dawson said.

At the time of his conviction in Virginia, the state did not impose the death penalty. It has subsequently been reinstated.

The fathers of the couple killed in Louisiana were permitted to witness the execution of Sonnier at Angola State Prison.

Just before a black hood was pulled over his head, Sonnier turned to Godfrey Bourque, father of Loretta Bourque, 18, and to Lloyd LeBlanc, father of David LeBlanc, 16, and, staring at LeBlanc, said: “Mr. LeBlanc, I can understand the way you feel.

“I have no hatred in my heart,” Sonnier continued. “As I leave this world . . . I ask to have your forgiveness.” LeBlanc nodded and said “yes.”

Lawyers worked until almost the hour of execution for both men trying to get the sentences stayed, but the Supreme Court rejected last-minute bids for each.

Goode had treated his crimes cavalierly almost from the moment he was arrested, taunting the parents of his victims, conducting his own defense for the Florida killing, abusing his parents, who insisted that he was insane and worked tirelessly to prevent his execution, and frequently appearing on television as a self-styled expert on child molesters.

Prison officials said Goode wrote 10 to 15 letters a day, mostly to public officials and members of the news media because he was forbidden years ago to continue writing to the parents of his victims.

The Washington Post has received continuous correspondence from him since he was first arrested in Fairfax County in March 1976. His final letter to the Post is dated “3-29-84” and reads in its entirety: “Dear Editor, The Washington Post, Wash, D.C. Very Urgent! My ‘execution’ is scheduled for next week (4-5-84) and I demand it be carried out! Please arrange to come ‘interview’ me immediately. Sincerely Arthur F. Goode III 038781.”

As recently as Wednesday at a prison news conference, Goode had said he had no remorse for the killings, demanded to be executed and said his final wish was to have sex with a little boy.

Prison officials said that after Goode spoke with his parents for the last time just after midnight, he seemed to realize that, in Superintendent Dugger’s words, “This time there would be no last-minute stay. I think until then he really thought there would be.”

At 4:45 a.m. yesterday Goode ate a final meal of steak, baked potato, buttered cauliflower and broccoli, half a gallon of ice cream, and a dozen chocolate chip cookies.

“He ate with gusto,” said prison spokesman Vernon Bradford.

Dugger led Goode to the electric chair and held a microphone to carry his last words to 12 witnesses.

“I’m very upset,” Goode said as he was strapped into the chair. “I don’t know what to say, really. How much time do I have?”

Dugger did not answer, and Goode then issued his apology.

A black gag was placed across his mouth and a hood was dropped over his face, and at 7:03 a current of 2,000 volts was sent through his body. His body jolted, his fists clenched, and then his body relaxed. He was pronounced dead at 7:08.

A funeral home in Florida said Goode’s body would be sent to Hyattsville for burial. Goode is survived by his father and mother, who live in Pine Island, Fla., and three older sisters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/04/06/repentant-goode-executed-in-florida/c9ce2ab5-cd69-4c6a-8271-41efb4b60e21/

James Adams Florida Execution

James Adams was executed by the State of Florida for the murder of a man during a robbery. According to court documents James Adams had escaped from a Florida prison where he was serving a 99 year sentence for rape when he attempted to rob Edgar Brown who he would beat to death with a fireplace poker. James Adams would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

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Urging other death row inmates to ”keep on fighting,” James Adams died in the electric chair today for murdering a rancher, becoming the first black executed in Florida in 20 years.

Mr. Adams, 47 years old, who had maintained his innocence and charged that race played a part in his convictions, was pronounced dead at 7:11 A.M. The United States Supreme Court, voting 5 to 4, cleared the way for his execution Wednesday night by overruling a lower court that granted a stay so it could review whether Florida’s death penalty laws were racially discriminatory.

The stocky, muscular man told reporters earlier he ”wouldn’t hesitate to walk like a man” to his death. He did just that.

‘I Have Only Love’

”To all the men on death row, keep on fighting because it is wrong and immoral,” Mr. Adams said after being strapped into the chair where four others have died since 1979. ”I have no animosity toward anyone. I only have love.”

Mr. Adams was convicted of the murder of Edgar Brown of Fort Pierce, a prominent rancher and former St. Lucie County sheriff’s deputy. Mr. Brown was beaten to death with a poker in a robbery at his home on Nov. 12, 1973, and a witness said he had seen Mr. Adams running from the scene.

At the time, Mr. Adams was an fugitive from Tennessee, where he had served 10 years of a 99-year sentence for rape.

In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Adams said he was ”railroaded” in each crime because he was a poor black and the victims were white.

But Gov. Bob Graham, who signed Mr. Adams’s death warrant, said there was no reason to grant a reprieve as requested by defense attorneys and opponents of the death penalty.

Al Brown, the victim’s son, said: ”I don’t care what they do to him. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.” ‘A Terrible Mistake’

The family of James Adams, one of 14 children of parents who were sharecroppers, insisted the wrong man was executed. ”He has never killed anyone and Governor Graham is making a terrible mistake,” relatives said in a statement distributed in Tallahassee.

The Rev. Ernie Brunelle, a Roman Catholic priest from Gainesville, who was among 30 death penalty opponents outside Florida State Prison, said, ”The fact he was tried by a male, all- white jury, that means a great deal.” About 50 others protested at the Capitol in Tallahassee.