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James Henry Florida Execution

James Henry was executed by the State of Florida for the murder of a man during a robbery. According to court documents James Henry would break in the victim home and in the process of robbing it would murder the homeowner Zellie Riley. James Henry would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. James Henry would be executed on September 20 1984 by way of the electric chair.

James Henry More News

James Dupree Henry, trembling and professing innocence, died in the electric chair today for the murder of an 81- year-old man in a robbery.

Mr. Henry, 34 years old, bade his mother and girlfriend farewell and ate raw oysters for the first time before he was put to death in the oak electric chair moments after a temporary stay of execution expired at 7 A.M. He was pronounced dead nine minutes later.

”My final words are ‘I am innocent,’ ” Mr. Henry said before the death hood was dropped over his face.

Mr. Henry was the 25th man executed in the United States since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on the death penalty in 1976, and the ninth man executed in Florida. Gov. Bob Graham signed death warrants Wednesday for two more Florida inmates

Mr. Henry was to have died Wednesday morning, but the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit granted him a 24-hour reprieve while it considered his case. He had a calm visit with his family, including a half- hour alone with his new-found mother, after the court rejected his appeal. ‘Ready to Go Either Way’

”He said he was ready to go either way the court told him,” said a State Correction Department spokesman, Vernon Bradford.

Mr. Henry’s final words were barely audible to witnesses because the microphone placed in front of him did not work. He winked at his attorney, Richard Jordanby, a public defender.

He was executed for the murder on March 24, 1974, of Z.L. Riley, his next door neighbor and an Orlando civil rights worker. Mr. Riley was found gagged, tied to a chair and beaten with a pistol. His throat was slit with a razor but the police said he strangled on the gag.

Mr. Henry, who repeatedly denied killing Mr. Riley, began a life of crime when he was 15 years old and once served a prison term for shooting a man in the eye. He Ate a Dozen Oysters

Mr. Henry ordered a dozen oysters with hot sauce and crackers for his last meal. He had never eaten oysters. He finished the dozen along with half a cantaloupe and a glass of grapefruit juice but refused an offer of more oysters.

Late Wednesday night, Mr. Henry was visited by his mother, Dora Mae Bradwell of Quincy, Fla., four sisters, two brothers, Flora Talley of Paterson, N.J., and his attorney.

James Henry, who was shifted from family to family while growing up, said he did not know who his real mother was until a week ago after she read of his impending execution and contacted him at the prison.

”In my time of need, she was there,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/21/us/asserting-innocence-convict-dies-in-florida-electric-chair.html

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

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

Thomas Barefoot More News

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/