Arthur Tyler was sentenced to death for the 3/12/83 robbery and murder of Sander Leach, an elderly vegetable vendor. 

On March 28, 1987, in Joaquin Texas, 29 year old Ricky Blackmon stabbed Carl Rinkle to death with a handmade sword, made from an old saw blade.  Blackmon's accomplice, Donna Mae Rogers, knew Carl and knew he usually had cash.  She drove Blackmon to Carl's home and when he opened the door, Blackmon attacked him with the sword then looted his home.  Blackmon claimed that he only intended to rob Carl but when he looked in the window and saw Rogers naked in bed with Carl, he "snapped."

On 4/13/87, when he was 27 years old, Dallas janitor Charles Boyd, a previously convicted felon, raped and strangled 21-year-old Mary Mulligan in her Dallas, Texas apartment, leaving her body in the bathtub.  He then stole her car and jewelry. Boyd was sentenced to die 12 years ago for 1 of 3 North Dallas "bathroom slayings". Now 39, Boyd, has been on death row since December 1987, 8 months after he strangled and left Mary Milligan, 21, underwater in her bathtub.  Boyd was also indicted in the 1986 slayings of Tippawan Naksuwan, 37, and Lashun Chappell Thomas, 22. Those women were found stabbed in their bathrooms, police said.  At his trial, prosecutors said that Mr. Boyd committed burglary, robbery and sexual assault, making him eligible for the death penalty. Defense attorneys suggested that jurors should find Mr. Boyd guilty of voluntary manslaughter because he was "emotionally disturbed" and had said in a confession that Ms. Milligan called him a name and that made him angry.  A Dallas jury took only 10 minutes to sentence Mr. Boyd to death.  The cases involving Ms. Naksuwan and Ms. Thomas, who Mr. Boyd also admitted killing, were dropped after he was sentenced to die for Ms. Milligan's murder.  In 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Mr. Boyd's appeal, letting rulings that he received a fair sentence stand.  Rus Leachman, Ms. Milligan's boyfriend at the time of her death, said Wednesday that he is pleased to see the execution finally scheduled.  "Society will be better off without him," said Mr. Leachman, now an attorney in El Paso. "He is a very dangerous person."  As an attorney, Mr. Leachman said, he understands why executions sometimes aren't carried out for several years.  "But the delay is often longer than it should be," said Mr. Leachman, who had dated Ms. Milligan for more than two years. "It is disappointing that it takes this long, especially when the evidence of guilt is pretty overwhelming."  All 3 homicides occurred within a 10-month span. Police said Mr. Boyd, a night janitor at a bank building, did not know his victims but lived near them at the time of the homicides. Ms. Milligan, who had spent the day in her apartment on crutches because of a sprained ankle, had just moved from Lubbock to work at MBank. "She was a really fine person," Mr. Leachman said. "She was always looking out for someone else instead of herself."  Mr. Boyd, who had previous convictions for rape and robbery, has spent almost half of his life in prison.  Amnesty International, a human-rights organization opposed to the death penalty, wrote prison officials this week asking them to spare Mr. Boyd on Thursday so that his mental state can be reviewed.  ". . . we are deeply concerned that Charles Boyd, due to his severe mental retardation, was not totally responsible," the group wrote.  They said prison reports show that Mr. Boyd has an IQ of 67.  "His defense lawyers failed to investigate and present evidence of his mental retardation because they did not recognize that he might have such a problem," they wrote.  A prison spokesman said Wednesday that he knew of no appeals that would halt Mr. Boyd's execution at 6 p.m. Thursday.  

On July 7, 1990, John Simmons was murdered by his son-in-law, Joseph Keel.  Keel claimed that he set him up to kill because he was a "wife-beater".  He arranged to pick up John on the pretense of going to "check out" the offices at a hog farm where he worked.  Simmons was shot twice with a .22, then Keel drove his father-in-law to "get help". 

Kenneth Dunn is under a death sentence for the shooting death of Madeline Peters, 21, a teller at the Bank of Almeda in Houston during a $12,000 robbery. "It is not going to bring my daughter back. But it is going to give me peace of mind that he won't be doing it to somebody else's child."  Asked what he would tell Dunn if he could speak with him, Peters replied: "Rot in hell."

Drug dealer Marlon Williams was sentenced to die for the hired murder of Helen Bedsole who was divorcing her husband after 25 years of marriage.  Her husband, Clark Bedsole, hired Williams to kill his wife for $4000.  Clark Bedsole knew Williams because Williams had been selling him cocaine.  On November 11, 1993, she was shot twice in the head as she was standing in her kitchen.  Williams had numerous previous convictions.  A taped conversation with an informant during which he bragged about the murder led to Williams arrest.  The Supreme Court rejected his appeal in Nov. 1996. Williams' lawyer has largely based Williams' clemency petition to Gov. Jim Gilmore on the abuse and neglect suffered by his client during his childhood and adolescence.  Sherry Bedsole of Jarvisburg, N.C., was 21 when her mother was slain.  She said "I'm sorry that DeWayne had such a bad childhood, but for the last 6 years what me and my brother went through would not excuse us to go out and kill somebody."  "He's getting what he deserves," she said. "What he's put our family through for the last 6 years won't even compare to 10 minutes of him getting his lethal injection." As far as her father is concerned, Sherry Bedsole said, "He's lucky he's not lying right beside him."  Clark Bedsole was tried by a jury and got a life sentence. He will first be eligible for parole in 2016.  Ann Cascell of Norfolk, Helen Bedsole's brother's wife, said, "This excuse of abuse is just unreal. There are millions of adults out there who were abused and who never killed anybody.  No matter what the circumstances are, death is 100 percent, and 100% means he will never, never hurt anybody inside or outside prison again."  Sherry Bedsole and Cascell said several family members, themselves included, plan to view the execution. "He doesn't even have to look at us when he dies, and we feel that he should have to," said Cascell. "They say the death penalty is not humane? Well, I don't know about the electric chair, but I feel lethal injection is more humane than what he did to Helen," she said.  Sherry Bedsole said, "I'm just upset about the whole situation -- that (Williams is) going to the governor to seek clemency," she said. "I just have to voice my opinion because my mom's not here to do it."  Sherry Bedsole points out that Williams was also convicted of cutting the throat of Virginia Parker, the 71-year-old grandmother of his girlfriend, in 1994. He pleaded guilty to charges of burglary and malicious wounding in connection with that assault.  Sherry Bedsole said, "He had planned a massacre on his girlfriend's whole family after he killed my mom. . . . He did not get the death penalty just because he killed my mom. There was more involved."  

Karen Devendorf Birky, 38, was a school teacher, of special education at Lamar Elementary School in Houston, Texas and had taken a second job at a convenience store.  She was working the late shift and was robbed of $20 and shot with a .32 caliber gun in the parking lot of the store on 12/3/92. Richard Smith had 12 previous convictions, among them burglary, theft, aggravated assault and robbery and was on parole from Louisiana at the time of Karen's murder. The store's video camera system had caught Smith committing the crime and when he was arrested 5 hours later, he still had the gun on him.

Leslie Dale Martin was sentenced to die for the 6/21/91 murder of 22-year-old student Christina Burgin in Iowa, Louisiana, in Calcasieu Parish.  Martin was 24 years old and met Christina at a bar while he was there playing pool with friends.  He offered her a ride home and she was beaten, raped and strangled.  Martin placed a board across Christina's neck and jumped on it, cut her throat and then gouged out her eyes.  Her body was not found until the first week of July, stuffed in a pump shed.  Martin had previous convictions from age 14 and was on parole for an aggravated rape charge. In 1984, Martin had raped his own 14-year-old sister at knifepoint while their mother was in the hospital.  He was sentenced to 10 years but served only five.  Martin had repeatedly made statements that he would never go back to prison and killed Christina so she would "not complain."  Martin wants to drop his appeals and says the attorneys who were appointed to represent him have lied to the courts and lied to him.