|
| |
Four killers were executed
in March 2002. They had murdered at least
7 people.
Three
killers were given a stay in March 2002.
They have murdered at least 3 people.
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
March 4, 2002 |
Maryland |
Dawn
Marie Garvin, 20 |
Steven Oken |
stayed |
| Steven
Oken was convicted in the Nov. 1, 1987, murder of Dawn Marie Garvin, a
20-year-old newlywed. Dawn was sexually assaulted, tortured, then shot twice
in the head with a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun. Posing
variously as a police officer, a doctor with an emergency or a sheepish
husband locked out of the house, Oken flagged down women driving alone and
knocked on neighborhood doors asking to use the phone. On the night of Nov. 1,
Oken made at least 2 such attempts before he bumped into Dawn Garvin, 20, a
newlywed walking her dog. He asked to use the phone. She took him to her
apartment. And he took out a gun. Over the next few hours, Oken made Dawn
"beg for her life, cry, be terrified" and "forced sex upon
her," a psychiatrist testified at trial. "He became sexually
aroused" by her fear. Her father found her afterward. Garvin's husband, a
Navy aircraft mechanic stationed in Virginia, called her parents about
midnight, frantic that she wasn't answering the phone. Frederick J. Romano
arrived at his daughter's apartment at 1:30 a.m. The door was ajar, lights
blazing, television blaring. And in the bedroom, his daughter, naked but for a
bloody pillow case yanked over her head. She had been raped and shot twice in
the head. Before he left, Oken had tucked a teddy bear in her arms. Oken
fantasized about killing again. He wrote out a list of things he would need:
gags, chloroform, surgical gloves. A glass cutter. "Dark pantyhose to
cover hair and face." A camera. Rope. On Nov. 15, Oken's sister-in-law,
Patricia A. Hirt, 43, went to his home to return a camera. He raped her and
beat her so badly that he left blood trails through the house. Then he shot
her in the head and dumped her naked body in a drainage ditch on his way out
of town. In Patricia's Mustang, Oken drove north through the night. In
Kittery, Maine, he checked into the Coachman Motor Inn just off scenic Route
1. Lori E. Ward, 25, was working the front desk when Oken came from his room.
She struggled, but he was too strong. He stuffed her panties in her mouth and
pushed her to the floor. A coroner told Lori's family that Oken was still on
top of her when he shot her in the head. Things happened fast after that. Oken
fled north and checked into the Freeport Inn and Cafe, where a clerk noticed
the mess in his hair. A state police tactical unit surrounded his room, and
Oken surrendered the next day. When he finally was arrested, one woman's blood
was spattered on his gun and brain tissue from another was smeared in his
hair. At Oken's trial, a ballistics expert testified that a .25-caliber
automatic handgun found in his home was the same gun that fired the shells
discovered near Garvin's body. A small piece of rubber found near Garvin's
television set also matched a hole in Oken's tennis shoe, according to an FBI
expert. In January 1991, a jury took just three hours to sentence Oken to die
for the murder of Dawn Marie Garvin. Oken received life sentences for
Patricia's murder and the sexual assault of Dawn and another life sentence in
Maine for Lori's murder. On death row, deep within the brick fortress of
Maryland's Supermax prison, Oken taps away at a computer he hopes will save
his life. "Most everybody in here has learned to use the computer to
research the law," says Oken. "This is all we do is sit here and
pick apart our cases. This is our life." Behind the bulletproof Plexiglas
that guards their tier of wrought-iron cell doors, Maryland death row inmates
have quietly become the 1st condemned prisoners in the nation to be allowed to
use computers. Some of the state's most notorious murderers are spending as
much as 5 hours a day using 4 personal computers to scroll through law
libraries on CDs in the sterile, barely furnished area they call "the
Death House." The death row computers don't have Internet connections.
But even without e-mail and public access, they enable inmates to reach out --
and hit the raw nerves of relatives of those they killed. "I wish my
daughter could have learned to use a computer," says Betty Romano of
Millsboro, Del., whose 20-year-old daughter, Dawn Marie Garvin, was the 1st
victim killed by Oken in November 1987. "There's justice that needs to be
done. It's a miscarriage of justice to be giving a bunch of computers to
horrible killers on death row so they can nit-pick about ways to delay the
punishment they deserve." Frederick Romano, a Belcamp resident and
brother of Dawn Garvin says all inmates but those on death row should have
computer access. "I could agree with it if it was a guy who was going to
get out someday and could benefit from learning how to use a computer,"
Romano says. "But these guys are going to be dead. They've already got a
bunch of pricey lawyers working for them. The only things they should have in
there are 4 walls, a toilet and a sink." Betty Romano founded a support
group for families of murder victims, which consumed her completely until it
disbanded in 1996. Then she fell into a deep depression from which she was
able to recover only with medication. Two years ago, Romano and her husband
moved from the Baltimore suburbs to the Delaware shore, to a beautiful gated
community on Indian River Bay. But they still rely on pills, she said,
"to take the pressure off and make things slide over your shoulders a lot
easier." When a death penalty moratorium was proposed in Maryland,
Frederick Romano of Belcamp went to Annapolis with his family and a glossy
8-by-10-inch photograph of his sister, Dawn Garvin, in her wedding dress.
"I want to show that the murderers aren't the victims," Romano said.
"They're saying it's a racial issue, an economic issue. But [Oken] is
white. He's rich. He's college-educated. This is just a way for these bleeding
hearts to liberate these people." |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
March 6, 2002 |
Missouri |
Johnny Douglas |
Jeffrey
Tokar |
executed |
| Around noon on March 11,
1992, Jeffrey Tokar picked up his girlfriend, Sandra Stickley. Stickley smoked
crack cocaine and then they shared some beer. Then they went driving in a
rural area north of Centralia to find a place where nobody was home. They
located the empty Douglass residence. After parking in the driveway, Tokar
took his socks off, placed them on his hands to avoid leaving fingerprints,
and went inside the garage. He later returned with a shotgun and shells he had
found in the home, motioning for Stickley to come in. Eight-year-old
Jared Douglass, four-year-old Lynzie Douglass, and their father, Johnny
Douglass, returned to their home during the late afternoon. They had been
checking on cattle down the road from the family’s home. Upon arriving at
their house, they noticed a yellow station wagon in their driveway. Jarad had
mentioned earlier that he had seen a yellow station wagon driving towards
their home. Johnny told his children to stay in the truck as he went into the
garage to investigate. However, Lynzie decided to follow her father anyway,
calling her brother a "chicken" as she left the truck. At some
point, Jarad also left the truck and went to look into the garage. As the
Douglass family was returning home, Tokar and Stickley were ransacking the
Douglass home and stuffing items into empty pillowcases. Stickley warned Tokar
that she heard someone pull into the driveway. Tokar loaded the shotgun and
went toward the garage where he met Johnny Douglass. Stickley testified that
she heard one of the kids say "Mister, please don’t hurt my
daddy." She also heard Johnny plead: "Mister, please don’t hurt
me. I’ll do anything you say." She further explained that Tokar told
Johnny not to look at him. She heard one shot and then a second shot. Both
Tokar and Stickley ran to the car and threw the shotgun in the backseat. As
they sped away, Tokar wiped down the gun with his shirt, and took the shell
out of the gun. Tokar stopped to throw the gun and shell into a nearby farm
pond. Meanwhile, Jarad ran to the neighbor’s house. The neighbor called 911
and took the two children to their grandparents’ house. When the police
arrived on the scene, they found Johnny in a pool of blood on the garage
floor. He had been shot once in the face and once in the back of the head.
Tokar and Stickley were arrested on March 13, 1992.
UPDATE: Jeffrey Tokar died at 12:04 a.m., 3 minutes after the 1st of 3
injections was administered at the Potosi Correctional Center, prison spokesman
John Fougere said. Tokar appeared to be singing until
he lost consciousness. "A dying man should always tell
the truth, and the truth isn't necessarily what a person hears, but what they
choose to believe," Tokar said in a prepared final statement. "Praise the Lord,
I am on my way." Gov. Bob Holden on Tuesday night
denied clemency for Jeffrey Tokar, removing the last apparent legal barrier
before his execution. Spokesman Jerry Nachtigal said the governor found nothing
to warrant clemency and decided the jury's original verdict should be respected.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Tokar's appeal Tuesday, marking
the 4th time the court refused to halt the execution.
State law prohibited Douglass' children, Jarad and Lynzie, from witnessing the
execution because they are not yet 21. But Stuart Miller, the Audrain County
Sheriff who investigated the murder, was at the prison. 7 family members
witnessed the execution but declined to speak with the media afterward, prison
officials said. "I'm a strong believer and supporter
in the death penalty," Miller said. "I don't know if I really want to witness
one, but I feel an obligation to the family as the investigator, so that's why
I'm going to be there." |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
March 7, 2002 |
Texas |
Bobby Ray
Harris
James Williams, 22
Michael Watkins, 32 |
Gerald Tigner |
executed |
| Gerald Wayne Tigner, once described
by a prosecutor as having a "heart full of scorpions," twice was
convicted and sentenced to die in the August 1993 shooting deaths of James
Williams, 22, and Michael Watkins, 32 in Waco. Tigner confessed to the
slayings, but claimed he acted in self-defense. With guns blazing in both
hands, Tigner shot Williams 7 times and Watkins 6 times in what prosecutors
described as a drug-related robbery attempt. At the time of the shootings,
Tigner was free on bond in the December 1992 shooting death of Bobby Ray
Harris, a former boyfriend of Tigner's mother. Tigner also confessed to
killing Harris, saying he shot him in self-defense after Harris burst into his
house and said he was looking for Tigner. Tigner was convicted in the deaths
of Williams and Watkins in 1994 and spent 2 years on death row before the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out his conviction and awarded him a new
trial. In overturning his conviction, the Austin court ruled that prosecutors
did not give a copy of Tigner's taped confession to defense attorneys in the
time prescribed by law. He was retried and convicted again in March 1997.
"Gerald Tigner is a vicious criminal who was a threat and danger to
society and murdered on several occasions, and with the fact that one more
step in the process has now been completed, he is now closer to the sentence
that 2 McLennan County juries believed was proper," said McLennan County
First Assistant District Attorney Crawford Long, who prosecuted Tigner. The
Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Tigner's 2nd conviction in April 1999 in a
unanimous decision. |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
March 12, 2002 |
Georgia |
unnamed man
Jean Drew |
Tracy Housel |
executed |
| Evidence was presented at the
sentencing trial that, during a two-month period in
early 1985, Tracy Housel killed
a man in Texas, stabbed a man in Iowa, sodomized a
woman in New Jersey, and, finally, killed the woman in
Gwinnett County, Georgia, for whose murder he
received the death sentence in this case.
Housel's pre-trial statements concerning these crimes
were admitted in evidence. In addition, the surviving
Iowa and New Jersey victims testified, as did law
enforcement officers from Texas, Florida and Georgia. Housel
left his wife in California in October of 1984, his
marriage having unraveled as a result of his "being on
the road" all the time. A month later Housel began
living with a woman in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In
February 1985, Housel was at a truck stop in Spring,
Texas, "laid over trying to get a load." Housel
stated, "We were all in our leathers, dressed more or
less like a rowdy little bike club, just raising Hell
and discontent." He met a man named Troy, who had a
quantity of cocaine and was trying to sell it. Troy
got drunk, and Housel helped him out to his truck and
went back to the bar. He learned (he said) that "a
couple of guys [were] planning on robbing [Troy] of
all of his cocaine," but after he told them not to,
they "left him alone." However, Housel himself "was
wanting, I guess, a little bit more cocaine," so he
climbed into Troy's cab "just [to] fix my nose again
and go on about my business." Troy woke up and accused
Housel of trying to steal his cocaine. When Troy
grabbed him by the throat, Housel picked up a hammer
and hit him on the head eight or nine times. Housel took Troy's cocaine and a
few other things, including a CB radio, a stereo, and
Troy's identification, put them into his bag, and
drove the truck to Beaumont, Texas, where he left it.
He stated that Troy was still breathing when he left
Spring, but that he died somewhere between Spring and
Beaumont. Troy's body was found in the sleeper of his
cab, seven miles from Beaumont, Texas, on February 20,
1985. He was nude from the waist down, and had been
anally sodomized. On March 29, 1985, Housel was back
in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He met a man named Gary at a
truck stop and asked him for a ride to Des Moines,
where perhaps he could get a job. Gary told him he
would take him as far as Atlantic, which was about
halfway. They got into Gary's car and drove. Gary testified that when
they reached the Atlantic exit, Housel pulled out a
knife and told him to drive on. A couple of exits
later, Housel told Gary to pull off the interstate and
park. Then, Gary testified, Housel demanded his
wallet, and stabbed him as he reached for it. Housel
stated that Gary made a gesture which he interpreted
as a homosexual advance, and he "freaked"; he pulled
out his knife and began stabbing him. Gary denied
making any sexual advances. In any event, Gary got out of his car, and Housel
pushed him down a ravine. When Gary climbed out,
Housel stabbed him several more times and threw
him back in. Gary had thrown away his keys, but Housel
found a spare key in the console and drove the car to
New Jersey. Credit card receipts found in Housel's
belongings after he was arrested showed that he had
used Gary's credit cards in Iowa, Illinois and
Pennsylvania on March 30 and April 1. On April 2,
1985, a young woman named Renee met Housel at the
apartment of a friend of hers in Phillipsburg, New
Jersey. Housel introduced himself as "Troy." About
11:30 p.m., Renee announced that she was going home.
"Troy" (who Renee identified at trial as the
defendant) offered to escort her to her car. Once
there, Housel entered the car and began to strangle
her, and then forced her to orally sodomize him.
Telling her she was too nice to kill, he took all her
money and left. Renee testified that she had marks on
her neck from being strangled that did not finally
disappear until late that summer. Next, Housel
drove Gary's car to Spartanburg, South
Carolina, where he abandoned it. He caught a ride from
there to Lawrenceville, Georgia. After
"drinking all night," Housel met the victim in this
case, Jean Drew, in the early morning hours of April
7, 1985, at a Lawrenceville truck stop. Housel said
they had sex, and then went for a ride in her car, a
silver-gray Mustang. They parked in an open area
behind some woods, just off Beaver Ruin road in
Gwinnett County. According to Housel, they were having
sex again in the back seat of her car when he got the
urge to spit. Unfortunately, his spit hit her window.
She began yelling at him, and he lost his temper and
began striking her with his fists. (There was blood
all over the inside of the car when it was recovered.)
They got out of the car. Her nose was bleeding, and
she spit blood on him. Then he really hit her, and she
fell "like a ton of bricks." He got on his
knees and strangled her, and then he picked up a stick
and beat her face to a "bloody pulp."
Housel left her lying there, and drove her car
to Daytona Beach, Florida, where, using her credit
cards, he stayed several days prior to being arrested.
Jean Drew's body was found later that morning, nude
from the waist down. Her head was "extensively
traumatized and disfigured." There were "several
lesions about the neck area," and there was "blood
smeared on both hands." The pathologist
who conducted the autopsy testified that the victim
was still alive at the time of strangulation, and that
the "[strangulation] force was fairly long in duration
given the amount of . . .
contusion in the area of the neck . . .; the [hyoid]
bone . . . was broken . . . and there was digging of
fingernails not just into the skin and left in place,
but actually tearing through the skin which is
another indication of a fair degree of struggle on the
part of the decedent." Several of the victim's teeth
had been knocked out. Her mouth was cut. Her skull was
crushed in three places. The pathologist testified
that because of the
extensive trauma to the head, it was impossible to
determine how many times the victim had been struck.
Cause of death was "a combination of multiple head
trauma and asphyxiation by strangulation."
|
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
March 14, 2002 |
Virginia |
Joyce Snead Aldridge,
56 |
James Patterson |
executed |
| James Earl Patterson said he wants to
die for the brutal rape and murder of a 56-year-old Prince George woman in
1987. "As I look around this courtroom, I see lives
that I've wrecked. To say I'm sorry to these people is a hollow
statement," he said in a crowded courtroom just before sentencing
yesterday in the death of Joyce Snead Aldridge. "These families were
touched by me because, in some instances, they befriended me. In befriending
me, it turned into their worst nightmare," he said calmly. Patterson said
he couldn't promise that, if given a life sentence, he would not ruin more
lives. "Your honor, I've thought about the death sentence, and I beg you
to give me the death sentence," he said with tears in his eyes. "I
pray today that it will be some type of closure for these families. I'm deeply
sorry. . . . I just pray the Lord touches their lives and take away the pain I
brought upon them." Prince George Circuit Judge James F. D'Alton Jr. said
the death penalty was not something the court could impose just because
Patterson asked for it. But because of the vileness of the crime and the
possibility of future dangerousness, he did impose the sentence. Judge D'Alton
said the crime was especially vile. Patterson,
then 20, didn't know Aldridge, but had met her in passing while partying with
one of her daughters. Shortly before midnight, on Oct. 11, 1987, Patterson,
who had been drinking and using cocaine, broke into the woman's house to rob
her to buy more drugs. In a videotaped confession,
he said that, when he discovered she had only a
handful of coins in her purse, he became enraged and decided to
rape her. He decided to kill her so there would be no witnesses, he said.
Using one of Aldridge's kitchen knives, he stabbed her 3 times in the
abdomen and left her to die. Joyce was able to
make it to the phone to call the police
and then she attempted to reach her son through the telephone operator but was
using the wrong number. While she was attempting to make the call a second
time, Patterson returned and fatally stabbed Joyce 14 more
times and fled the scene. Police arrived as he
was leaving, he said, but he was able to flee to his
car, which was parked about a block away. The murder
remained unsolved for the next 11 years. Patterson has a lengthy, violent criminal record. He was serving a 25-year
sentence for raping an 18-year-old girl when he was indicted for murder.
Evidence from the rape was re-submitted to the Virginia Division of Forensic
Science for DNA analysis, which concluded his DNA matched evidence in the
Aldridge killing. Attorney R. Clinton Clary Jr. said Patterson asked that no
evidence be presented on his behalf. Clary said that, even though he disagreed
with his client's request, he respected it. Garrison E. Aldridge said his
family has been wondered for many years who did this to their mother, and why.
"The only thing we've been able to put together and come up with is, this
is senseless." His sister, Karen Aldridge Bornstein, said the family's
prayers have been answered, but now they have to deal with the hurt, anger and
grief all over again. "The feelings of loneliness and emptiness have
never gone away," she said. "There are feelings that are too
difficult to express into words, but they're in our hearts."
Patterson was also sentenced to life for each of the remaining 3 charges
of rape, abduction and forcible sodomy. He thanked the judge after the sentence
was imposed, and gave a quick smile and nod to his family as he was led from the
courtroom. UPDATE: Last statement from Patterson:
"My
heart goes out to the Aldridge family,'' Patterson said. ''...God bless each and
every one of you who is here tonight.'' Patterson said
last week in a telephone interview from death row,
"The penalty fit the crime.
I was responsible and I want to pay the ultimate price.'' |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
March 21, 2002 |
Texas |
Victor Cervan |
Rodolfo Hernandez |
stayed |
| In March 1985, Rodolfo Hernandez, of
San Antonio, shot 5 illegal immigrants in the neck and back, killing Victor
Cervan. Hernandez was convicted for his part in the March 1985 shooting death
of Cervan, a Mexican citizen, in New Braunfels. Court records show Hernandez
rounded up 5 illegal immigrants in San Antonio after they slipped into Texas
aboard a boxcar from Mexico. He offered to find them transportation to Denton
where they hoped to get jobs. Hernandez and his brother-in-law, Jesse Garibay,
agreed to drive them for $150. They stopped in a secluded area of Comal County
where the 5 Mexican men were ordered out of the car at gunpoint. When 1 of the
men tried to run away, he was shot in the back. Court records indicate
Hernandez ordered the men to lie on the ground face down, took their valuables
and shot each in the neck, then drove off with his brother-in-law. Cervan was
the only 1 of the 5 to die. The 4 others testified against Hernandez at his
trial. Garibay got a 4-year prison term for theft. UPDATE:
Condemned killer Rodolfo Hernandez received a 30-day reprieve. Gov. Rick Perry,
in an unexpected decision, spared the former auto mechanic at the request of San
Antonio police who met with Hernandez this week on death row. The police believe
Hernandez has information about unsolved murders. Hernandez, 52, got word of the
reprieve minutes before he was to be taken to the death house in a wheelchair.
Hernandez was found guilty of robbing and shooting five undocumented Mexican
immigrants in March 1985 in a remote area just north of San Antonio. One of the
men died. "The police department in San Antonio apparently was able to
corroborate two of the other murders that he said he participated in and they
would like the time to talk with him to try to solve some more of these cases,''
Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said. |
| Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
March 29, 2002 |
Alabama |
Jack McGraw, 60 |
Gary Brown |
stayed |
| The state Supreme Court on Tuesday
set a March 29 execution date for Gary Leon Brown, who was convicted of
capital murder for the stabbing death of a Jefferson County man in 1987. The
execution date was the 1st set in Alabama since June 15 last year, when the
court scheduled Danny Joe Bradley to be executed on July 20. That execution
date was later blocked. Brown, 44, of Center Point, was convicted in Jefferson
County Circuit Court with 2 others in the Memorial Day slaying of 60-year-old
Jack McGraw. McGraw had been stabbed and slashed 78 times. His body was found
in his trailer. |
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