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Four killers were executed
in December 2001. They had murdered at least
5 people.
Four killers were given a stay in
December 2001. They have murdered at least 7
people.
One killer was
granted a commutation to a life sentence. He had
murdered at least 2 people.
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
December 4, 2001 |
Oklahoma |
Cindy Baillee, 21 |
Lois Smith |
executed |
| Lois Nadean Smith was
convicted of killing her son's ex-girlfriend in Sequoyah County. Smith was
convicted of first-degree murder for the July 4, 1982, killing of Cindy
Baillee, 21, ex-girlfriend of Smith's son, James "Greg" Smith. Smith and her son, Greg, and another woman picked up Cindy
Baillee in Tahlequah on the morning of the slaying. As they drove from a
motel, Nadean Smith confronted Cindy about rumors that she had threatened to
tell law enforcement officials about her son's involvement with illegal drugs. Cindy denied those
rumors but Lois stabbed her in the throat, twisting the knife, then took her
to a house where she was repeatedly told she was going to be killed.
Cindy was shot five times in the chest, twice in the head and once in the
back. At one point, Smith jumped repeatedly on Cindy's throat, according
to a witness's testimony. Lois Smith testified that she stabbed Cindy
and fired shots at her but did not mean to kill her. Greg Smith is
serving a life sentence for his role in the slaying. He reloaded Smith's gun
during the shooting. Baillie's daughter, Brandy Fields, 24, witnessed the
execution with her husband, a sister and a family friend. "You do
something of this magnitude, torturing somebody, you're going to have to pay
the price for it," she said. "She chose her path in life." |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
| December 5, 2001 |
Arizona |
Linda Reynolds
David Lacey |
Chad
Lee |
stayed |
| On April 6, 1992, Chad Lee and
14-year-old David Hunt kidnapped Linda Reynolds, a Pizza Hut delivery person,
from a vacant house. They forced her to remove her clothing in the backyard.
Lee and Hunt drove her out to a desert area. They destroyed her car, sexually
assaulted her, and robbed her. Lee and Hunt then drove her to a bank, where
they forced her to withdraw $20 from the automatic teller machine. They then
drove her back to the desert area. Lee shot Linda in the head. However,
because Linda was still alive, Lee stabbed her twice in the chest, perforating
her heart and lung. On April 15, 1992, Lee and Hunt robbed and murdered David
Lacey, a Metro Taxi Cab driver. Lee shot David Lacey four times, and dumped
his body. Lee and Hunt abandoned the cab in another location.
There
are still appeals pending and the execution will probably not take place on
this date. |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
December 6, 2001 |
Oklahoma |
Inaam Al-Nashi
Mohammad Al-Nashi |
Sahib Al-Mosawi |
executed |
| Sahib Al-Mosawi was convicted of 1st-degree murder of his wife and her uncle in
Oklahoma City in 1992. Al-Mosawi, who came to the United States from Iraq in 1991, was married
to Inaam Al-Nashi. The couple had marital problems. Al-Nashi, who was pregnant, moved into
the apartment of Mohammad Al-Nashi, her uncle. After the baby was born,
Al-Mosawi went to the apartment and fatally stabbed his wife and her uncle. A
third stabbing victim, Fatima Al-Nashi, survived the attack and described it
as an apparent domestic dispute. Al- Mosawi was upset because his wife named
her newborn baby against his wishes. |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
| December 6, 2001 |
Nebraska |
Della Marie Brockamp, 36
unnamed man
Larry Witt |
David Dunster |
stayed |
| David Dunster was a senior at
Silverton Union High School when he walked into a store in Woodburn, Oregon on
May 19, 1972, and bound, gagged and blindfolded the clerk, Della Marie
Brockamp, a 36-year-old mother of eight. He shot her in the head and left.
Police charged him a couple of weeks later, suspecting rape, but no motive
surfaced in court, where he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
There was no death penalty in Oregon in 1972. But Dunster killed again, a
fellow inmate in a Montana prison where he'd been transferred, and again, a
cellmate in Nebraska in 1997.When James Brockamp heard the news that Dunster
had been sentenced to death in another state, his
mind flashed back to the day when he was 14 that his father picked him up
unexpectedly from school. The father gathered his eight children, ages 4 to
17, in the kitchen to tell them their mother was gone. "It changes
people's lives when you lose your mom and you're just a kid," said
Brockamp, now in his 40's and a log-truck driver in Silverton. At the time he'd never
heard of Dunster, only three years his senior, who had recently moved to the
area. Three years after the murder, Dunster was accused in a conspiracy to
kill Oregon State Penitentiary Superintendent Hoyt Cupp. Dunster was
transferred to Montana, where he killed an inmate in 1978 and was sentenced to
100 years. He snitched on a Death Row inmate and, as is customary for
informants, was transferred again, to Nebraska in 1993. He strangled cellmate
Larry Witt with a cord in the Nebraska State Penitentiary in 1997.
There
are still appeals pending and the execution will probably not take place on
this date. |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
December 7, 2001 |
North Carolina |
Aileane Pittman, and
her grandson,
Nelson Fipps Jr, 18 |
Sherman Skipper |
commuted |
| Superior
Court Judge Craig Ellis vacates Skipper's death sentence and sentences him to
two life terms in prison. The judge says he will rule at a later date on how
the two life sentences are to be run. (concurrent or consecutive) Skipper
was the first on North Carolina's death
row to have his sentence reduced under a new state law banning executions for
the mentally retarded. Sherman Elwood Skipper, 59, "was mentally retarded
prior to and at the time of the commission of the capital offense which
resulted in the imposition of death sentences," Superior Court Judge B.
Craig Ellis said in reducing Skipper's sentence to 2 life terms. The law
requires that a prisoner have an IQ below 70 and show inability to adapt to
society before age 18 before a court can declare him mentally retarded.
Skipper's former wife told the judge that her ex-husband was mean but not
dumb. District Attorney Rex Gore asked Skipper's ex-wife, Harriet Gainey, if
Skipper was too "dumb" to help around the house or "too sorry
to accept responsibility?" "He was too sorry to accept
responsibility," Gainey said. Skipper was convicted in the 1990 murders
of Aileane Pittman and her grandson Nelson Fipps Jr. in Bladenboro. Pittman
was Skipper's girlfriend, and Fipps was Pittman's grandson. Attorneys on both
sides agreed that Skipper's IQ tested at 69 and the hearing focused on his
life skills. Gainey twice married and divorced Skipper. She said that from the
time she and Skipper first married in 1965, he was a bad husband and father.
"He made money, but he didn't pay the bills," she said. "He
blew his money on alcohol and women." She also said that contrary to what
the defense has argued, Skipper could read and write and that he ran a
successful junkyard from the yard of their home in Columbus County. But
Skipper was a mean drunk who regularly beat her and their 4 children, Gainey
said. He prohibited her from having friends. Gainey said that when she was
pregnant with her youngest daughter, who is now 26, Skipper beat her with a
hammer and his fists. She left when he tried to kill her in the mid-1980s, she
said, and she was hospitalized for 6 months. Gainey said that her ex-husband
was jailed for various crimes, such as stealing a car, wounding his brother
and another man and trying to kill her. In his closing argument, Gore argued
that Skipper functioned well. He got married and had four children, Gore said.
"He had enough adaptive skills to manipulate Harriet for 20 years,"
Gore said. "He wasn't dumb; he was just sorry." Gore said that the
law was meant to exclude people from execution who had no capacity to make
choices, but that Skipper ran his life the way he wanted. Gore argued that
alcohol was the primary reason for Skipper's problems with the law. Before the
murder conviction, Skipper was convicted of wounding his brother. William
Mills, one of the two Durham attorneys representing Skipper, said that Skipper
more than meets the requirements for the state to declare him mentally
retarded. Mills said that Skipper could not pay the bills and that his house
was a mess after his wife left him. He said that Skipper is significantly
limited intellectually and in his ability to fit in to society. Skipper
was convicted in the 1990 murders of his girlfriend, Aileane Pittman, and her
grandson, Nelson Fipps Jr., in Bladenboro. Lawyers on both sides agreed that
Skipper's IQ tested at 69. A hearing before Ellis in Bladen County last month
focused on his life skills. Ellis found that Skipper displayed significantly
limited abilities in all 10 measures of getting along in adult society
outlined in the law. District Attorney Rex Gore said he would not appeal the
judge's decision. He said the case "is not a referendum on the death
penalty or anything else." |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
December 11, 2001 |
Georgia |
Christy Ann Griffith, 11 |
Bryon Parker |
executed |
| Bryon Parker was sentenced to death
for the malice murder of 11-year-old Christy Ann Griffith in Douglas County on
June 1, 1984. Christy disappeared on that day and foul play was soon
suspected. Law enforcement officers questioned a number of persons residing in
the trailer park where the victim had lived -- including Parker, who was
questioned on June 5, and again the next day. He signed a consent-to-search
form and officers searched his house on June 6, but found nothing relating to
any possible criminal activity except for a small amount of marijuana. Because
Parker’s statements regarding his whereabouts at the time the victim
disappeared were not entirely consistent, and because the investigators
learned that Parker had earlier been charged in an incident involving a young
girl in Florida, they began to focus their attention on Parker as a suspect.
Parker was asked if he would be willing to take a polygraph examination the
next day (June 7). Although Parker agreed to the test, he failed to show up
for the appointment. Parker had been convicted earlier on felony charges and
was placed on probation in Fulton County on May 15, 1984. The probation was
transferred to Douglas County that day, and he was scheduled to meet with his
assigned Douglas County probation officer on June 1. He failed to appear then,
but he did meet his probation officer on June 5, and asked for permission to
leave the state. After Parker failed to appear for the polygraph on the
morning of June 7, he was arrested on two warrants that were issued for his
arrest; one charged him with the misdemeanor offense of possession of less
than an ounce of marijuana, and the other was for the probation violation.
After talking further with police, he told them he would take a polygraph
test, provided that he was allowed to talk to his attorney beforehand. Parker
took the polygraph. The examiner wanted to conduct another test before he
could come to any final conclusions, but the examiner did tell the sheriff
that, not withstanding his answers, Parker knew where Christy's body was.
Parker was returned to Douglas County. He talked briefly to a couple of
officers, and then Parker was allowed to talk to his mother and two sisters,
for about half an hour. Afterwards, he was again given Miranda warnings and
the interrogation resumed. At approximately midnight, Parker admitted
responsibility for the victim’s disappearance, and agreed to reveal the
location of the body. He drew a map, which police officers used to find the
body. Afterwards, Parker was interrogated again; this time the confession was
tape-recorded. |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
December 12, 2001 |
Texas |
Gary D. McCarthy, 33 |
Vincent
Cooks |
executed |
| Vincent Cooks received a death
sentence for the February 28, 1988 murder of Dallas Police officer Gary
McCarthy outside a grocery store in Dallas. Cooks had been paroled just six months
earlier for an aggravated assault in which he fired shots at a police
officer. He had served less than one year of a five year sentence when
released. On Feb. 26 1988, Vincent Edward
Cooks and two of his friends, Tony Ray Harvey and Tracy Stallworth, rented a
blue Plymouth and parked it down the street from the Brancatos Grocery Store
in Dallas, Texas. They also parked a stolen Oldsmobile in a parking lot across
from the store. All three men then sat in the Plymouth and waited. At
4:30 p.m. that same day, the owner of the Brancatos Grocery Store went to the
bank to obtain $30,000 for the store's check cashing service.
Thirty-three-year-old Gary Don McCarthy, an off-duty police officer who worked
part-time as the store security guard, accompanied DeCardenas on the bank run.
As Cooks, Harvey and Stallworth observed them returning to the store, Cooks
and Harvey left the Plymouth and got inside the Oldsmobile still parked across
from the store. Cooks then approached the store owner and Officer McCarthy,
and attempted to grab the money bag. As Officer McCarthy pushed the owner away
from Cooks, he dropped the money bag. Cooks then shot Officer McCarthy. The
officer returned fire and shattered the Oldsmobile's rear window as Cooks fled
the scene. Gary McCarthy died
later at Parkland Memorial Hospital. The
damaged window did not go unnoticed by two police officers patrolling the
area. Suspecting that the car was stolen, the officers pursued, but found the
vehicle abandoned when they reached it. The officers found a revolver on the
floorboard of the vehicle. Police arrested Stallworth, Harvey and Cooks
shortly after tracing the license plate number to the rented blue
Plymouth. Tracy Stallworth named Cooks and Tony
Ray Harvey as accomplices. Cooks was identified in a line-up as the
person who had murdered Gary. In 1984,
Cooks fired two shots at a police officer when the officer attempted to quell
a nightclub fight. Cooks also committed two additional aggravated robberies,
both of which were accomplished in much the same manner as the primary
offense. Cooks committed the first of those robberies on Nov. 11, 1987,
when he robbed a small Dallas grocery store in the middle of the afternoon as
the store's owner returned with $37,000 from a bank run. Cooks pointed his gun
at the store owner and demanded the money. Police identified his fingerprint,
as well as Stallworth's palm print, on a "hot- wired" Oldsmobile
Cutlass that was abandoned near the store. Cooks committed the second
aggravated robbery in January 1988, when, again wielding his gun, he stole
$30,000 from a Dallas liquor store early in the afternoon as store employees
returned from a bank run. Cooks was also disruptive in jail as he
awaited trial for capital murder. On one occasion, Cooks scattered food all
over the front wall of his cell, then loudly demanded more food and threatened
that "if anybody messes with me, I'll kill somebody." Smiling, Cooks
added, "[T]his is not the first time I've been accused of it." On
several occasions as officers escorted him from his cell, through the
officers' dining room, to the gymnasium, Cooks tried to grab food in the
officers' dining room. When told not to grab the food, Cooks once responded,
"Don't no [expletive] police tell me what to do. Any police that mess
with me, I'll beat their ass." Cooks also had a quick temper and
intimidated jail staff members. "The difficult part of this is reliving
the memories," Candy McCarthy, the slain officer's sister, said
Wednesday. "We've been waiting nearly 14 years for this." |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
December 12, 2001 |
Arizona |
Rachel Gray, 4 |
Barry
Jones |
stayed |
| Barry Jones was sentenced to die with
sexual assault and murder of Rachel Gray, age 4. In April 1994, Rachel's
mother and her three children were living with Jones. On the afternoon of May
1, 1994, while she was asleep, Jones took Rachel out of the house in his van,
and was later seen hitting her with his hand and elbow. When the mother awoke,
she discovered that Rachel's head was cut and she was bleeding. Jones said
that Rachel cut her head when some neighbor children pushed her down. Rachel
continued to bleed and throw up during the night, but Jones would not let
Angela take her to the hospital. By the time Rachel was taken to the hospital,
she was dead as the result of a ruptured intestine. The jurors found Jones
guilty on all counts. In addition to the sentence of death for the murder,
Jones also received concurrent sentences totaling 35 years and a consecutive
sentence of life with no parole eligibility for 35 years.
There
are still appeals pending and the execution will probably not take place on
this date. |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
| December 17, 2001 |
Delaware |
Anne Marie Fahey, 30 |
Thomas
Capano |
stayed |
| A Superior Court judge on Thursday
set Dec. 17 as the execution date for Thomas Capano. But Capano is not
expected to die that day because he plans to continue appealing his murder
conviction and death sentence. The date was set Thursday afternoon during a
hearing in Superior Court in Wilmington. Capano participated in the hearing
through a video hookup with the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna. He
wore a graying beard, glasses and a bright orange jumpsuit. He was shackled
around the waist. Capano said little during the six-minute hearing. "I do
waive being there in person," Capano said. He told the judge he would
have been happy to have the court set the execution date in writing instead of
at a hearing. Defense attorney Joseph M. Bernstein said Capano and his
attorneys still are discussing which avenue of appeal to pursue. When they
decide, they will return to Superior Court and ask that the Dec. 17 date be
stayed, he said. The stay is automatic after a request is filed, Bernstein
said. Judge T. Henley Graves traveled to the Wilmington hearing from
Georgetown, where he sits on the Superior Court for Sussex County. Graves
recently was assigned to handle Capano's case in Superior Court, Bernstein
said. Judge William Swain Lee, who presided over Capano's Superior Court trial
and sentenced him to death in 1999, is now retired. Graves was required to set
an execution date because the Delaware Supreme Court on Aug. 10 upheld
Capano's murder conviction and death sentence. A jury convicted Capano, a
former prosecutor and political insider, of murdering Anne Marie Fahey on June
27, 1996. Fahey, 30, was a scheduling secretary for Sen. Tom Carper while he
was governor. Two of Fahey's siblings, Robert Fahey and Kathleen Fahey-Hosey,
attended the hearing Thursday. Fahey-Hosey said it didn't matter that it was a
simple procedural event. "Until he is executed we will continue to come
and represent Anne," she said. "We'll be here every step of the
way." Capano's family was not in the courtroom. The two men who
prosecuted Capano, Chief Deputy Attorney General Ferris W. Wharton and U.S.
Attorney Colm F. Connolly, attended the hearing but did not speak. Dec. 17 is
Capano's second scheduled execution date. Lee set the first date of June 28,
1999, when he sentenced Capano in March 1999. The first execution date was
stayed for Capano's appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court. Capano has until
Nov. 10 to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review his allegations that his
federal constitutional rights were violated during his trial. He could also
choose to begin a new round of state court appeals. Those appeals probably
would focus on the competency of the attorneys who represented him during his
trial. There
are still appeals pending and the execution will probably not take place on
this date. UPDATE: A judge has canceled the scheduled Dec. 17 execution
of Thomas Capano so the former prosecutor and political insider can continue
his appeal. Superior Court Judge T. Henley Graves signed an order Monday
stopping the execution he scheduled during a Sept. 6 hearing. Delaware law
automatically calls for the date to be set aside while the convicted person
appeals the case. Capano has a petition pending with the U.S. Supreme
Court asking the justices to review two federal issues the Delaware Supreme
Court rejected when it upheld his conviction and sentence in August. Attorneys
for Capano filed paperwork in Superior Court on Friday seeking to have the
execution date set aside. Prosecutors filed paperwork Monday afternoon
agreeing the Dec. 17 execution date should be canceled. Deputy Attorney
General Loren C. Meyers, chief of the prosecution's appeals division, noted in
the paperwork that Capano's petition in Washington would not be decided before
then. Prosecutors are under a Dec. 27 deadline to file papers responding to
Capano's request that the U.S. Supreme Court hear his case. |
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