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 Nine killers were executed in May 2010. They had murdered at least 17 people.
 Eight killers were given a stay in May 2010. They have murdered at least 13 people. 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 4, 2010	Arkansas	Carol Heath	Stacey Johnson	stayed
On the morning of April 2, 1993, a friend discovered Carol Heath’s body in the living room of Heath’s apartment in DeQueen, Arkansas. When the police removed Carol’s two children from the home, Ashley Heath, then six years old, told Carol’s friend that a man had broken into the home during the night. Ashley was interviewed by Arkansas state police investigator Hayes McWhirter a few hours later. Ashley told McWhirter that a black male with “a girl sounding name” had come to the house during the night. Ashley said that the man, who was wearing a green shirt and sweater, told Carol that he had just been released from jail, and said that the man was mad at Carol for dating another man, Branson Ramsey. Ashley said that after her mother and the man fought, she saw her mother on the floor bleeding, and that the man was next to her mother, holding a knife. After this exchange, McWhirter handed Ashley a stack of seven photographs from which to identify the intruder, and she selected a photograph of Johnson. Johnson was arrested in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on April 14th, 1993, after falsely identifying himself to officers during a traffic stop. According to one officer, Johnson offered each officer $5000 to let him go, and told the officers that he had killed someone in Arkansas. Johnson was taken into custody and returned to Arkansas. DNA from hair found in Carol Heath’s apartment was consistent with Johnson’s, and initial testing showed that the DNA pattern in the hair appeared in one of every 250 African-Americans. More precise DNA testing later revealed that the DNA pattern occurs in only one of every 720 million African-Americans. DNA testing on a cigarette butt and a bloody green shirt found by the roadside yielded similar results. The DNA from the saliva on the cigarette butt was consistent with Johnson’s and occurred with a frequency of 1 in every 28 million African-Americans. The DNA from the blood on the shirt was consistent with Heath’s, and occurred with a frequency of 1 in 380 million Caucasians, 1 in 6.4 billion African-Americans, and 1 in 390 million western Hispanics. At Johnson’s first trial, conducted in Sevier County, Ashley was seven years old, and she could not be persuaded to testify. The trial judge deemed her not competent to testify, and allowed investigator McWhirter to read Ashley’s prior statement to the jury. McWhirter testified that Ashley identified Johnson as the intruder after she viewed a stack of photographs. The Supreme Court of Arkansas reversed and ordered a new trial after determining that the trial court erred in allowing McWhirter to testify about Ashley’s identification of Johnson. The court concluded that the evidence was not admissible under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule. On remand, Johnson asked that the trial be moved to Little River County in light of the extensive publicity in Sevier County. The trial judge granted the motion for a change of venue, but moved the trial to Pike County rather than Little River County. Johnson objected to the judge’s choice of venue on the ground that the percentage of African-Americans in Pike is much smaller than that in either Sevier or Little River. The judge overruled Johnson’s objection, and the case was transferred to Pike County. Ashley was ten years old at the time of the second trial, and she had been treated by a psychotherapist in the years after the murder of her mother. Prior to a hearing about Ashley’s competency to testify in the second trial, Johnson requested discovery of notes taken during Ashley’s psychotherapy sessions. Although Arkansas law recognizes a privilege protecting confidential communications between a psychotherapist and her patient, Johnson argued that these records were necessary for him to present an adequate defense, for they would enable him to challenge the witness’s competency at the competency hearing and before the jury, and to show the need for a defense expert. Ashley had waived the psychotherapist privilege for the first trial, but her attorney ad litem invoked the privilege as it related to counseling that occurred after the first trial. The trial judge agreed that communications occurring after the first trial were privileged, and denied Johnson’s motion to discover records that would disclose those communications. Prior to the second trial, Johnson also moved to suppress the statements made to the arresting officers in Albuquerque. Johnson did not testify at the suppression hearing. Johnson’s motion to suppress was ultimately denied. At trial, Johnson sought to introduce testimony from Cordelia Vinyard, Branson Ramsey’s ex-wife, in an effort to portray Ramsey as an alternative suspect. The trial court excluded the testimony. Johnson was convicted at the second trial and sentenced to death. In the penalty phase of the proceeding, the jury found that the State proved three statutory aggravating circumstances, including that Johnson committed the murder in an “especially cruel manner.” The State also presented certain victim impact evidence, which was admitted over Johnson’s objection. The Supreme Court of Arkansas concluded on direct appeal that the trial court correctly applied state law when it refused to provide access to Ashley’s psychotherapy records, did not abuse its discretion in excluding Vinyard’s testimony, and properly admitted victim impact evidence. In anticipation of a retrial after Johnson’s first conviction, the state supreme court also had ruled that the “especially cruel” aggravating circumstance was not unconstitutionally vague or overbroad, and that the Arkansas victim impact statute was constitutional. In a post-conviction proceeding, the state courts concluded that Johnson did not receive ineffective assistance of counsel, and that the consideration of victim impact evidence did not violate the Constitution. These federal proceedings followed.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 4, 2010	Oklahoma	John David Cederlund, 28	Richard Smith	stayed
On July 21, 1986, Pamela Rutledge, Rita Jo Cagle, and Richard Tandy Smith were riding together in a two-door Ford Thunderbird in southwest Oklahoma City. They stopped at two houses to acquire drugs. While they were at the second house, John Cederlund arrived. He left along with Smith, Rutledge, and Cagle sometime after midnight. The four proceeded west on Southwest 29th Street until the road turned to gravel and they had crossed a quarter of a mile into Canadian County. Smith, who was driving, pulled into the driveway of an abandoned farm house. The State presented evidence that Smith got out of the car and opened the trunk. He called Rutledge, who went to the back of the car. He informed her that he was going to rob Cederlund. When Rutledge told Smith that Cederlund was known to be rough sometimes, Smith responded, "I'll kill the f___ing punk." Smith went back to the driver's door and picked up a sawed-off 12 gauge shotgun from the floorboard. He pointed the gun at Cederlund and demanded drugs and money from him. Cederlund gave Smith some drugs, but said he had no money. Smith then ordered Cederlund out of the car. Cederlund got out through the passenger side and stood by the door as Smith walked around the back of the vehicle. Smith again demanded money. Cederlund said he had no money and Smith might as well kill him. Cederlund pushed the gun away. Then Smith pushed Cederlund and fired the gun. The blast hit Cederlund in the chest, made a single entry wound less than an inch in diameter, and destroyed Cederlund's heart. Cederlund died as a result of that wound. Smith was arrested on July 22, 1986, while driving the Thunderbird. A search of the car produced twelve live Federal 12 gauge number eight load shotgun shells. Another live shell was found during a subsequent search of Smith's apartment. A firearms expert testified that the pellets and shot cup recovered from Cederlund's body had come from the same brand, gauge, and load. Blood consistent with Cederlund's was discovered on the end of the passenger door. An expert in blood spatter analysis testified that the car door had to be open for the blood to have gotten there. He further concluded that the person the blood came from had been shot and had been one to two feet away from the car door, producing "high velocity" blood spatters. Smith's pre-trial statement was introduced. Initially, he denied having been with Rutledge and Cagle after going to the second house. When detectives told him that witnesses had seen him, he admitted that he had driven to the deserted farm house, but claimed that he remained in the car. Rutledge, Cagle, and Cederlund got out of the car and walked some fifty feet up the driveway. Smith claimed that Rutledge returned to the car, retrieved the shotgun from the trunk, went back to Cederlund and shot him.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 12, 2010	Texas	David L. McCoy David Lawrence Logie	Kevin Varga	executed
During the late summer of 1998, Billy Galloway, his girlfriend, Deannee Bayless, Galloway's friend Kevin Varga, and Varga's girlfriend, Venus Joy Anderson, were all on probation or parole with the South Dakota Department of Corrections. On September 1, 1998, the four gathered their money and belongings, loaded up Galloway's automobile, and left South Dakota. A few days later, the group arrived in Wichita, Kansas, and checked into a hotel. That evening, after discussing a plan to lure someone back to the hotel to blackmail or rob them, Galloway, Anderson, and Bayless went to a bar. According to Anderson, the group discussed "rolling" someone. When she asked what this meant, her cohorts explained that it entailed enticing an older man with money back to a hotel room and then blackmailing him after the others caught him in a compromising position. At the bar, the three met David McCoy, and Bayless talked him into returning to the hotel with them. Once there, the men killed McCoy, wrapped his body in a blanket, and loaded it into Galloway's vehicle. Driving both Galloway's vehicle and McCoy's car, the group headed out of Wichita. After Galloway's automobile stopped running, they abandoned it in a parking lot with McCoy's body still inside. The group arrived in Greenville, Hunt County, Texas, September 7, 1998. Galloway and Varga wanted more money, so they agreed to engage in the same pickup scheme that they had used in Kansas. Shortly thereafter, Bayless and Anderson met David Logie at the Holiday Inn and convinced him to go eat with them. With Bayless driving Logie's rental car, the three left the Holiday Inn parking lot. Galloway and Varga surreptitiously followed them in McCoy's car. Shortly thereafter, Bayless pulled off the road near a building. Bayless got out of the car with Logie and told Anderson that she and Logie were going to have sex on the hood of his car. About this time, Galloway appeared and began cursing and hitting Logie with his fist, knocking him down. Varga repeatedly struck Logie with a log, killing him. Bayless took Logie's wallet and credit cards. The group burned McCoy's vehicle and left Greenville in Logie's rental car. The group traveled to San Antonio, where Bayless and Anderson used the credit cards Bayless had stolen from Logie at a local mall. As they were leaving the mall parking lot, the women noticed a police car behind them, and they pulled into a nearby Wal-Mart parking lot. The officer approached and separated the two women. After Anderson confessed to the murders, officers arrested Bayless and Anderson. Galloway and Varga were arrested later that night. Based on the information Anderson gave in her confession, the authorities located Logie's body near Greenville and notified Kansas authorities about McCoy's murder. Varga's accomplice Billy Galloway is scheduled to be executed the following day.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 12, 2010	Mississippi	Floyd Melvin "Mike" McBride	Daniel Burns	stayed
During the day of November 9, 1994, Joseph Daniel Burns and Phillip Hale went to the Town House Motel on Gloster Street in Tupelo, Mississippi where Mike McBride was the hotel manager. Phillip Hale testified that he and McBride were friends, and that he introduced Burns to McBride on November 9, 1994. Phillip Hale testified that he went in and asked McBride if they could stay there three or four days. McBride said sure, and Phillip went out to the truck, got his bag and asked Burns to come inside. Phillip Hale testified that they then "hung out for awhile" with McBride. Burns and Phillip Hale then went to get something to eat and watched a movie before returning to the motel office. McBride asked Burns and Phillip Hale if they wanted to help him count $30,000. They agreed and while they were counting the money, the two decided to rob McBride. Burns and Phillip Hale agreed that Hale would hit McBride and Burns would take the money. Phillip Hale further testified that he hit McBride and knocked him down and left the room to make sure nobody was coming. When he returned to the room, Burns was stabbing McBride in the back of the neck with a knife, a fork, and a Phillip's head screwdriver. When Hale asked Burns what he was doing, Burns stabbed Hale in the foot. Hale testified that McBride was repeating "why me" while he was being stabbed to death. After the stabbing, Burns and Hale wiped fingerprints, got the money and left. The record reflects that $3,000 was taken from a tin safe in McBride's office. Burns broke the lock off of the safe with a pair of pliers. After the stabbing, Burns and Phillip Hale returned to the trailer in Verona where they were living with Janie Taylor and Brandi Sides. Burns went into Janie Taylor's room, whom he was dating at the time, woke her up, told her what they had done, counted the money, and divided the money between himself and Hale ($1,500 each). Phillip Hale then went to his brother, Jeff's, shop. His brother was out of town. Burns showed up later and informed Phillip Hale that he had thrown the "stuff" behind the trailer park where they lived. The testimony of State's witness, Carrie Cryder, revealed that on December 24, 1994 he and Burns were riding around, and Burns retrieved the weapons from behind the trailer and threw them off of the bridge on Brewer Road. Later that day, on November 10, 1994, Phillip Hale parked the truck the two had driven to the Town House Motel behind Jeff's house because he was fearful that someone had seen the truck and could identify Burns and Hale by the truck. Jeff Hale had loaned his brother the truck several weeks before McBride was killed. When Jeff Hale returned to town, he was suspicious about why Phillip had parked the truck behind the house. Also, Phillip paid his brother, Jeff, $600 he owed him, and this too made Jeff suspicious about where Phillip got the money. When Jeff first asked Phillip where the money came from, Phillip lied to him. Phillip testified that he ultimately told his brother that he and Burns killed McBride, although there is some question about when he told him. Burns also told Jeff Hale what happened. The following weekend, on November 12, 1994, Burns, Phillip Hale and his brother, Jeff went to Tunica to the casinos and spent the money they had stolen from the Town House Motel returning to Tupelo with $100 or $200. A guest of the Town House Motel the night of November 9, 1994 testified for the State. He testified that he remembered seeing two men arrive at the motel in a tan truck that fit the description of the truck belonging to Jeff Hale that Phillip Hale was driving on the day of the murder. The guest testified that they arrived about 8:00 p.m. and left around 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. McBride's body was found by another employee of the motel around 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Phillip Hale and Burns were not arrested until August of 1995 concerning this crime. The Tupelo Police Department arrested them pursuant to an investigation that ensued after two anonymous phone calls were received by the Crime Stoppers. McBride's body was found in his living quarters at the Town House Motel. McBride died from a combination of blunt force injuries to the head and neck caused by numerous blows to the head and back of the neck and exsanguination from the injuries to his face and neck. While Burns was in jail in Lee County, he began corresponding with a female prisoner, Contina Kohlheim. In the letters Burns sent Kohlheim, he talks about killing a man. "Look about the guy I killed, me and Phillip were dealing with a lot of dope and Phillip was giving our dope to this guy. He owed us $58,000. I told Phillip to ask him one more time to pay us but he never did. So that night we went to the town house and I killed his ass." In the other letter Burns sent Kohlheim, he wrote, "I took a man's life now I'm looking at the Death Penalty." Testimony at trial revealed that Burns was not charged with any other murder, and there had been no other murders at the Town House Motel. The letters were signed from "JoJo," or "Love JoJo." Burns gave the letters to a male trustee who in turn gave them to the jailer who then gave them to a female trustee to deliver since the male prisoners were not allowed to go to the female side of the jail. Kohlheim turned the letters over to the police after being asked to do so. Following a request by the district attorney's office, Officer Buddy Bell obtained a handwriting sample from Burns under the pretense of having him write down who would be allowed to visit him in jail. A comparison was then made between the letters written to Kohlheim and the known writing sample of Burns. The state's expert determined that there was a strong probability that the signatures on both letters were Burns'. He further determined that the content of both letters was probably written by Burns. There was also a fingerprint analysis done on the letters. Burns' fingerprints were found on both letters obtained from Tina Kohlheim.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 13, 2010	Ohio	Robert S. Craig Gregory Wahoff	Michael Beuke	executed
On May 14, 1983, Gregory Wahoff offered a ride to Michael Beuke who was walking along the side of the road. Once inside Wahoff’s car, Beuke produced a .38 caliber revolver and demanded that Wahoff drive to a rural area in Hamilton County, Ohio. When they reached a sufficiently secluded area, Beuke led Wahoff into the woods; Wahoff eventually charged towards Beuke, attempting to wrestle the gun away from him. After this effort was unsuccessful, Wahoff began to run away, but Beuke shot him in the back, lodging a bullet in his spine and paralyzing him. Beuke then placed the gun against Wahoff’s face and fired a second shot, which passed through Wahoff’s cheek and lodged in the ground. Wahoff was fully conscious at this point, but he pretended to be dead and apparently succeeded in fooling Beuke, who returned to the car and drove off. Later that day, the police found Wahoff and took him to the hospital for emergency treatment; Wahoff survived Beuke’s brutal attack but he was permanently paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair and eventually died. A few weeks after the attempted murder of Gregory Wahoff, on June 1, 1983, the police discovered Robert Craig’s body in a ditch on the side of a rural road in Clermont County, Ohio. Craig worked as a deliveryman supplying fresh fish to local restaurants, and during these travels, he would often offer rides to hitchhikers in the area. Beuke allegedly told Michael J. Cahill, a man with whom Beuke worked, that he killed Craig after Craig picked him up along the side of the highway. An autopsy on Craig’s body revealed that he was shot twice in the head and once in the chest, and the police found his abandoned car in the parking lot of a local shopping mall. Two days later, on June 3, 1983, Bruce Graham saw Beuke walking down the highway with a red gas can in hand. In an effort to help the apparently stranded traveler, Graham offered Beuke a ride to the nearest gas station. As he had done with Wahoff, Beuke brandished a short-barreled revolver and instructed Graham to drive to a rural area. When they arrived at the secluded destination, Beuke immediately fired at Graham. The bullet grazed Graham’s forehead, inflicting a minor but bloody wound. After an unsuccessful effort to wrestle the gun from Beuke, Graham sought refuge in a nearby farmhouse. As Graham fled, Beuke fired several shots, one of which struck Graham in the shoulder. After Beuke realized that Graham had escaped to safety, he got into the car and left the scene of the shooting. Sometime thereafter, Beuke’s co-worker, Cahill, told the police what he knew of Beuke’s involvement in the “mad hitchhiker” shootings. The police obtained a warrant and searched the car that Beuke had been driving, which he had borrowed from Cahill. The police discovered a cup that had been removed from Wahoff’s car, a red gas can, and a blood-stained football jersey. The officers arrested Beuke who, at the time of his arrest, was in possession of a .38 caliber revolver — the same type of weapon he used to shoot Wahoff in the back. In July 1983, an Ohio grand jury returned a ten-count indictment against Beuke, charging him with one count of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder, three counts of aggravated robbery, three counts of kidnapping, and one count of carrying a concealed weapon. The aggravated murder charge included two specifications, either of which, if proven beyond a reasonable doubt, would make Beuke eligible for the death penalty under Ohio law: (1) committing aggravated murder as part of a course of conduct involving the purposeful attempt to kill two or more persons, and (2) committing aggravated murder in the course of an aggravated robbery. Beuke’s jury trial began on September 19, 1983. The prosecution introduced extensive evidence implicating Beuke in the “mad hitchhiker” shootings, including Wahoff’s and Graham’s testimony of their nearly fatal encounters with Beuke, evidence linking the bullets extracted from Wahoff and Craig to Beuke’s gun, Beuke’s fingerprints on Wahoff’s and Craig’s automobiles, and Cahill’s testimony about Beuke’s confession. On October 5, 1983, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all ten counts and the two specifications, making Beuke eligible for capital punishment.  Defense counsel moved for a continuance of the penalty hearing, but the trial court granted only a short, one-day continuance and set the hearing for October 7, 1983. At the penalty hearing, Beuke introduced a presentence report and mitigation testimony from his parents. Unpersuaded by the defense’s evidence, the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating evidence and recommended that Beuke be sentenced to death. The trial court adopted the jury’s recommendation and imposed the death penalty. In April 2010, 27 years after imposing a sentence of death in this case, the trial court judge wrote a letter to the parole board opposing clemency for Beuke. UPDATE: Michael Beuke, known as the "homicidal hitchhiker" was executed for a murder he committed nearly 27 years ago. Beuke also was found guilty of the attempted murders of Gregory Wahoff and Bruce Graham. Among those who witnessed Beuke's execution were Susan Craig, the widow of murder victim Robert Craig, 27, and Dawn and Paul Wahoff, the children of Greg Wahoff, 28, another of Beuke's victims. Greg Wahoff was paralyzed and wheelchair bound after he was shot in the face and back by Beuke, to whom he had given a ride. He apologized to the widows of his victims. As Beuke said, “Mrs. Wahoff, I am sorry. Mrs. Craig, I am sorry. Mr. Graham, I am sorry," Wahoff’s daughter, Dawn, clasped hands with her brother, Paul, and Susan Craig, who sat side-by-side as witnesses. Beuke then launched into a 17-minute recitation of the Roman Catholic rosary, the Lord’s Prayer and other prayers. The 6-foot 4-inch Beuke occasionally whimpered while repeating the Hail Mary dozens of times, clasping rosary beads in his right hand. Dawn later reflected: “I was thinking, ‘You’re stalling the inevitable." But it’s his last minutes of his life. . . There’s nothing that is going to bring my dad back” Susan Craig said afterward, "June first, Bob will be dead as long as he was alive, how sad is that? It's been a really long time. I was pregnant at the time he was murdered. Now we can talk about Bob and have happy memories and not talk about Michael Beuke." Gregory Wahoff’s wife, JoAnn, of Bright, Ind., gave up her witness chair to her children. “I was content with watching the body brought out," she said afterward. “I’m just outraged," Mrs. Wahoff said of the decades of legal appeals. “It should not have gone on this long." Beuke’s eyes remained closed throughout the prayers. He then became still, looking upwards. Once the drugs started flowing, Beuke became completely still within three minutes, and was pronounced dead seven or eight minutes later. Beuke, 48, succumbed to the lethal injection drug at 10:53 a.m. “I didn’t take it lightly that a person died today," Susan Craig said during a news conference following the execution. “This is his debt to my family and JoAnn (Wahoff’s) family and today he paid it.” Mrs. Craig called Beuke’s apology unsatisfying: “Don’t you think it’s time you man up and be honest? Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry." Robert Craig Jr., named after his slain father, accompanied his mother to Lucasville but did not witness the execution. A grown man now, he never knew his father, killed before he was born. "It's pretty much surreal," said Bobby Craig.  "It's like we went full circle, we closed the circle today," said Susan Craig.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 13, 2010	Texas	David L. McCoy David Lawrence Logie	Billy Galloway	executed
During the late summer of 1998, Billy Galloway, his girlfriend, Deannee Bayless, Galloway's friend Kevin Varga, and Varga's girlfriend, Venus Joy Anderson, were all on probation or parole with the South Dakota Department of Corrections. On September 1, 1998, the four gathered their money and belongings, loaded up Galloway's automobile, and left South Dakota. A few days later, the group arrived in Wichita, Kansas, and checked into a hotel. That evening, after discussing a plan to lure someone back to the hotel to blackmail or rob them, Galloway, Anderson, and Bayless went to a bar. According to Anderson, the group discussed "rolling" someone. When she asked what this meant, her cohorts explained that it entailed enticing an older man with money back to a hotel room and then blackmailing him after the others caught him in a compromising position. At the bar, the three met David McCoy, and Bayless talked him into returning to the hotel with them. Once there, the men killed McCoy, wrapped his body in a blanket, and loaded it into Galloway's vehicle. Driving both Galloway's vehicle and McCoy's car, the group headed out of Wichita. After Galloway's automobile stopped running, they abandoned it in a parking lot with McCoy's body still inside. The group arrived in Greenville, Hunt County, Texas, September 7, 1998. Galloway and Varga wanted more money, so they agreed to engage in the same pickup scheme that they had used in Kansas. Shortly thereafter, Bayless and Anderson met David Logie at the Holiday Inn and convinced him to go eat with them. With Bayless driving Logie's rental car, the three left the Holiday Inn parking lot. Galloway and Varga surreptitiously followed them in McCoy's car. Shortly thereafter, Bayless pulled off the road near a building. Bayless got out of the car with Logie and told Anderson that she and Logie were going to have sex on the hood of his car. About this time, Galloway appeared and began cursing and hitting Logie with his fist, knocking him down. Varga repeatedly struck Logie with a log, killing him. Bayless took Logie's wallet and credit cards. The group burned McCoy's vehicle and left Greenville in Logie's rental car. The group traveled to San Antonio, where Bayless and Anderson used the credit cards Bayless had stolen from Logie at a local mall. As they were leaving the mall parking lot, the women noticed a police car behind them, and they pulled into a nearby Wal-Mart parking lot. The officer approached and separated the two women. After Anderson confessed to the murders, officers arrested Bayless and Anderson. Galloway and Varga were arrested later that night. Based on the information Anderson gave in her confession, the authorities located Logie's body near Greenville and notified Kansas authorities about McCoy's murder. Galloway's accomplice Kevin Varga is scheduled to be executed the previous day. UPDATE: “If I can go back and change the past, I would,” Galloway said, looking at Logie's father and widow, who were among people watching through a window. “There's nothing I can do. I'm sorry.” He looked toward another window, where his father and stepmother stood in an adjacent room with a friend. He told the friend that he loved her. “That's it,” Galloway said. He gasped slightly, then began snoring quietly. Ten minutes later, at 6:19 p.m. CDT, as his pale skin turned purple, he was pronounced dead. “If our beloved David had to die, we are glad it was in Texas where justice is their main goal,” Logie's widow, Diann, said. “His death left a void in our lives and hearts that can never be filled. Our lives will never be the same for as long as we live.” Logie's father, Jack, dismissed Galloway's apology and Varga's more extensive but similar comments from the death house Wednesday. “I cannot forgive,” he said.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 19, 2010	Georgia	Martha Chapman Matich, 31 Lisa Renee Chapman, 11	Melbert Ford	stayed
Melbert Ray Ford, Jr., was found guilty by a Newton County jury of murdering his former female companion, Martha Chapman Matich, and her 11-year-old niece, Lisa Chapman. He was sentenced to death on each of the murder convictions. After his relationship with 31-year-old Martha Matich broke up, Melbert Ray Ford, Jr. began harassing her by telephone. Two weeks prior to her death, Ford told a friend of his that he “was going to blow her . . . brains out.” The day before her death, Ford unsuccessfully tried to convince a friend to drive him to the convenience store where Martha worked, owned by her family. Ford told the friend that he planned to rob the store and work revenge upon Martha by killing her. On March 6, 1986, Ford talked to several people about robbing the store. He told one that he intended to kidnap Martha, take her into the woods, make her beg, and then shoot her in the forehead. Ford tried to talk another into helping him with his robbery (Ford had no car). When this effort failed, Ford responded that “there wasn’t anybody crazy around here anymore.” Finally, Ford met 19-year-old Roger Turner, who was out of a job and nearly out of money. By plying him with alcohol, and promising him that they could easily acquire eight thousand dollars, Ford persuaded Turner to help him. They drove in Turner’s car to Chapman’s Grocery, arriving just after closing time. Ford shot away the lower half of the locked and barred glass door and entered the store. Turner, waiting in the car, heard screams and gunshots. Then Ford ran from the store to the car, carrying a bag of money. At 10:20 p.m., the store’s burglar alarm sounded. A Newton County sheriff’s deputy arrived at 10:27 p.m. Martha Matich was lying dead behind the counter, shot three times. Martha's 11-year-old niece Lisa Chapman was discovered in the bathroom, shot in the head but still alive, sitting on a bucket, bleeding from the head, and having convulsions. She could answer no questions. She died later. Ford and Turner were arrested the next day. Turner confessed first and was brought into Ford’s interrogation room to state to Ford that he had told the truth. Ford told him not to worry, that Turner was not involved in the murders. Afterwards, Ford told his interrogators that the shooting began after Martha Matich pushed the alarm button. He stated that, had he worn a mask, it would not have happened. Ford claimed at trial that he was too drunk to know what was happening, and that it was Turner who entered the store and killed the victims. A Newton County, Georgia, grand jury indicted Ford for malice murder and felony murder of Lisa Chapman, malice murder and felony murder of Martha Chapman Matich, armed robbery, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony, and burglary. Following trial in October 1986, the jury found Ford guilty on all counts. At the sentencing phase, the jury found statutory aggravating circumstances as to each murder. The jury found that the malice murder of Lisa Chapman was committed while Ford was engaged in the commission of another capital felony – armed robbery – and during the commission of a burglary. The jury found that the malice murder of Martha Matich was committed while Ford was engaged in the commission of the capital felonies of armed robbery and murder and during the commission of a burglary. The jury recommended that Ford be sentenced to death for the two malice murders. The trial court followed the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Ford to death on both malice murder counts, to run consecutively to each other; merged the two felony murder counts into the malice murder counts; and imposed a consecutive 20-year sentence for armed robbery, a consecutive five-year sentence for the firearm possession, and a consecutive 20-year sentence for burglary. Ford had a previous execution date set for February 23, 2010 but received a stay due to a vacancy on the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 19, 2010	Texas	Ricardo Garcia, 15 Ana Robles, 13 Leovigildo Bombale Bonal, 55	Rogelio Cannady	executed
On October 10, 1993, Rogelio Reyes Cannady caused the death of a 55-year-old Hispanic male Texas prison inmate inside a medium custody housing area at the McConnell Unit in Beeville. While serving two consecutive life sentences for murders he committed on June 29, 1990, Cannady beat his cellmate, Leovigildo Bombale Bonal, to death with a padlock attached to the end of his belt. The prison guards found Bonal lying on the cell floor with his hands tied behind his back with a belt. Cannady had no apparent wounds or injuries, but his boots and clothing were covered with blood. He neither complained of injuries nor looked as if he had been assaulted in any way. Blood was splattered and smeared on the cell walls, the bedding of both bunks, and the furniture. Concealed in a pair of boots, the officers found a belt and the face of a combination lock. The body of the lock had been dumped in the cell's commode. Bonal, who was serving a 15-year sentence for murder from Tarrant County, died two days later. A technician from the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab analyzed the blood splatters and testified that their velocity indicated that the victim had been beaten. Patterns were created on the ceiling by blood flying off a weapon, possibly a combination lock. She also discerned that someone stomped in a puddle of blood or stomped on the victim lying in the blood or that the victim's head bounced up and down in the blood. Additionally, the technician had collected samples of blood from the cell, the belt, and Cannady's and Bonal's clothing. All blood samples were Type B and belonged to the same person. Bonal had Type B blood; Cannady has Type O blood. Bonal's autopsy revealed numerous lacerations and abrasions on the scalp and face as well as lacerations, abrasions, and swelling on the arms, hands, and one leg. A circular imprint that matched the combination lock was found on his torso. He suffered two skull fractures and extensive hemorrhaging over the scalp and in the brain. One of the skull fractures was slightly circular in nature. The medical examiner matched the injuries to the lock retrieved from the cell. He also testified that it would take a fair amount of force to cause the fatal fractures and injuries Bonal sustained and that Bonal's injuries were consistent with homicide from the impact of a lock and from being stomped on by a person wearing boots. Notwithstanding the gruesome evidence, Cannady testified that he killed Bonal in self-defense for fear of being raped. On the night of the killing, Cannady testified that he woke up when he thought he heard someone call "chow time." He allegedly got up to look out of the cell, but when he turned around he saw Bonal touching himself sexually. At that point, he confronted Bonal and hit him in the face. It seemed to Cannady that Bonal was trying to reach for something so Cannady grabbed his lock and attached it to his belt. Cannady then hit Bonal, believing Bonal was reaching for a weapon, and kept hitting Bonal because Bonal kept coming toward him. Cannady admitted that he hit and kicked Bonal repeatedly. He also admitted dismantling the weapon and tying Bonal's hands after Bonal became unconscious, both of which measures were allegedly done to prevent Bonal from striking back. However, immediately after the attack, Cannady said Bonal was beaten because Cannady thought he was "responsible" for their not being served breakfast. Cannady was the first Texas prison inmate to be prosecuted under a 1993 statute that allows for capital murder convictions if the offender is serving 99 years or life as a result of previous murder convictions. Cannady's prior murder conviction was for the murders of two runaways, Ricardo Garcia, 15 and Ana Robles, 13, who were discovered in an irrigation canal near La Feria. Cameron County authorities reported that Ricardo, of Freer had been stabbed 13 times and that Ana, of Brownsville, had been raped and strangled. Cannady has a long history of juvenile offenses that began in 1984. In addition, on December 10, 1989, when Cannady was seventeen years old, he committed a robbery in Harlingen, Texas. While he was out on bond for that crime, on June 29, 1990, in La Feria, Texas, Cannady murdered the teenagers. Cannady was tried and convicted of the robbery charge in September 1990, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Though Cannady was originally charged with capital murder for the double homicide, in exchange for his guilty pleas, the charges were reduced to murder and he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms on January 22, 1991.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 19, 2010	Mississippi	Rhonda Crane, 24	Paul Woodward	executed
Around noon on July 23, 1986, Rhonda Crane, age twenty-four, was traveling on Mississippi Highway 29 south of New Augusta in Perry County, Mississippi to join her parents on a camping trip. Paul Everette Woodward driving a white log truck forced her car to stop in the middle of the road. He then exited the truck with a pistol in his hand and forced Rhonda to get into his truck. Woodward then drove the victim to an isolated area, forced her out of his truck and into the woods at gunpoint and forced her to have sexual relations with him. Rhonda Crane was shot in the back of her head and died. Rhonda’s automobile was left on the highway with the engine running, the driver’s door open and her purse on the car seat. A motorist traveling in a vehicle on the same highway saw a white colored, unloaded, logging truck moving away from the victim's vehicle, and notified the authorities. Additionally, a housewife residing on a bluff along the highway at the location of the car noted a logging truck with a white cab stop in front of her driveway. A white male exited and walked toward the back of his truck and returned with a blonde haired woman wearing yellow clothing. As he held her by her arm, the male yelled sufficiently loud for the housewife to hear the words “get in, get in,” and forced the blonde woman into the driver’s door of the truck and then drove off. The housewife investigated the scene on the highway in front of her house, discovered the abandoned car, and notified the authorities. Law enforcement officers began an investigation to locate Rhonda Crane. The officers discovered that Paul Everette Woodward unloaded logs at a pulp mill and departed the yard at 11:36 a.m. in a white Mack log truck. Woodward arrived at his wood yard at approximately 12:45 to 1:00 p.m. The yard manager noted that he was late arriving at the yard and was wet from sweating. A drive from the mill to the wood yard takes approximately thirty minutes. A sheriff’s deputy stopped Woodward, who was driving a white Mack logging truck, around 2:00 p.m. on the afternoon of July 23, to ask if he had seen anything that would assist in the investigation of Rhonda Crane’s disappearance. Woodward replied that he had not seen anything. Through the investigation, it was ascertained that Woodward was the only driver of a white logging truck operating at the nearby timber yards on that date. On the following day, Rhonda Crane’s body was located in the nearby wooded area by her father and a friend. Woodward was arrested, and ultimately he made both written and videotaped confessions. Woodward also confessed to his employer over the telephone. Woodward was charged with kidnapping, oral sexual battery, and capital murder with an underlying crime of rape. He was tried before a jury and convicted of all counts. In a separate sentencing hearing, the jury sentenced Woodward to death for the capital murder conviction. He was also sentenced to two thirty-year sentences on the kidnapping and oral sexual battery charges, to run consecutively.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 19, 2010	Tennessee	Donald Kenneth Bond, Jr.	Marlon Kiser	stayed
In the early morning hours of September 6, 2001, Officer Donald Kenneth Bond, Jr., of the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department (HCSD) was shot to death while patrolling the East Brainerd area of Chattanooga. In October 2001, a Hamilton County grand jury indicted Marlon Kiser for first degree premeditated murder, first degree felony murder in the perpetration of theft, and first degree felony murder in the perpetration of arson. The trial court granted a change of venire, and a jury was selected in Davidson County, Tennessee. Trial was held in Hamilton County from November 10-19, 2003. At trial, the defense sought to show that Kiser was framed in the murder by his friend and roommate, Mike Chattin. A. Guilt Phase of Trial Malcolm Headley testified that he became acquainted with Kiser in 1999 while working as a security guard at Dole Fresh Fruits in Gulf Port, Mississippi. Kiser, a truck driver, was particularly interested in Headley's military background as a sniper in the Marine Corps. At one point, Kiser asked Headley to get Kiser a bulletproof vest. Headley refused but told Kiser where he could purchase one. Kiser also asked if Headley was interested in selling Headley's gun, but Headley declined. Later, Headley decided to buy himself another gun and decided to sell Kiser his old one. Headley identified his old gun, an MAK-90 semiautomatic assault rifle, as the weapon he sold to Kiser in September 1999. Headley noted that since he had sold the rifle to Kiser, someone had painted it with camouflage colors and had installed a muzzle or "flash suppressor," a device that allowed the weapon to be fired faster and with more accuracy. When Headley sold the gun to Kiser, Headley also purchased one case of Wolf 7.62x39 hollow-point bullets for him. Headley testified that sometime during 2000, Kiser asked Headley to meet him at a truck stop. Earlier, Kiser had told Headley of some trouble he was having with some law enforcement officers. When they met, Headley asked Kiser if he was headed to court. According to Headley, Kiser replied, "Well, yeah, and if I could kill somebody, I will, even if I have to sneak up on them and do it." Observing Headley's reaction, Kiser said he was "just joking." About a month later, Headley was in the hospital recovering from a broken leg, and Kiser visited him. That was the last time they saw each other. On cross-examination, Headley testified that Kiser told him that the main reason he wanted to purchase a weapon was to keep it for protection at the home he shared with his mother in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Kiser told Headley that he planned to teach his mother how to use the weapon because he was often away from home due to his trucking job. Charles Lamar Sims testified that he owned Uncle Charlie's Produce, a small produce stand on East Brainerd Road in Chattanooga that was located across the street from another fruit stand named Nunley's. Sims' fruit stand was burned down in November 2000. Sims stated that although no charges were brought against anyone, he suspected the owners of Nunley's were responsible for the fire based on their past behavior and the competitiveness between the two fruit stands. Sims rebuilt his stand at the same location after the fire, but he later closed the business for health reasons. He described his fruit stand as clean and organized and said Nunley's looked like a "garbage dump" because bad produce was kept on old boards. Several weeks before the victim was killed, Sims told Mike Chattin that he suspected Nunley was responsible for the fire. Sims said that Nunley's fruit stand also burned down sometime after the victim's death but that Nunley attributed the fire to a kerosene lamp and did not suspect arson. Carl Hankins testified that he had known Kiser for about three years and met him through their mutual friend, Mike Chattin. Hankins was aware that Kiser had been living at Chattin's house. One day, Hankins, Kiser, and Chattin rode together in Chattin's truck to Uncle Charlie's Produce. Hankins and Chattin got out and spoke with Charlie Sims, who told Chattin that he suspected Nunley had burned down his produce stand. Hankins said that when he and Chattin returned to Chattin's truck, Chattin was mad and related Sims' suspicions to Kiser. Kiser told them that "we ort to go up there and kick his produce around a little bit and turn his tables over and maybe drag him up and down the road." Later, after the group returned to Hankins' house, Kiser talked about retaliating against Nunley for the fire at Uncle Charlie's Produce and suggested burning Nunley's fruit stand under an "eye for an eye" theory of justice. Hankins said he believed Kiser was "just talking." Hankins said their conversation took place a couple of weeks before the victim's death. He said that in the five or six times that he was around Kiser, Kiser told him that he "very much disliked the police department." According to Hankins, Kiser also told him that "he would kill a man before he would ever take a beating like he took before." On the evening of September 5, 2001, Hankins; Chattin; Chattin's girlfriend, Carol Bishop; Kiser; and a man named Murphy were all at Chattin's house. Hankins said that everyone was having a good time and that no one was mad about anything. Hankins said that before he left the house that night, Kiser talked with Chattin over the telephone. Kiser told Hankins that it was time for him to leave and "that there was either things going on or things I didn't need to be a part of, that it would be better off if I just left." Beverly Mullis testified that she was Kiser's girlfriend in September 2001. At that time, Kiser was living with Mullis in her home three or four days during the week and was staying at Chattin's house on weekends. Kiser owned a Chevrolet Camaro that Mullis had wrecked in August 2001, causing damage to the front end and headlights. For that reason, neither she nor Kiser drove the car at night. Kiser kept his rifle and magazine clip at Mullis' house, storing the rifle between the mattress and box springs of her bed. On September 5, 2001, Kiser received a telephone call from Chattin and told Mullis that Chattin wanted Kiser to come to his house. Mullis said Kiser left her home in the Camaro about 2:00 p.m., taking his rifle and a backpack with him. On further examination, Mullis said Kiser and his family got angry with her after she refused to return Kiser's car when Kiser went to jail. Mullis said she had been convicted of theft twelve years earlier and driving on a revoked license. Nola Rannigan testified that she lived off East Brainerd Road and was familiar with Nunley's produce stand, which was located in an empty lot next to her home. In the early morning hours of September 6, 2001, Rannigan was up late playing computer games. Sometime after 1:00 a.m., she looked out her kitchen window and noticed a car with its parking lights turned on parked in Nunley's parking lot. The car was still there when Rannigan looked again a little while later. As she was getting ready for bed, Rannigan heard "a big bam and then there were several bams after that and then a couple of pops." Startled, she looked out the dining room window and saw that the car was still parked at Nunley's. Rannigan looked through the shades and also saw a dark truck in Nunley's parking lot. A person looked toward Rannigan's house, straightened up, got into the truck, and slowly drove away with no lights turned on. Rannigan described the driver as a large man, at least six feet tall. Rannigan recalled that it was about 1:15 a.m. when she first left her computer and about 1:35 a.m. when she heard the noises outside. She estimated that the truck drove away about five to seven minutes later. Rannigan said that after these events, she noticed that the car with its lights on was still parked at Nunley's and considered telephoning the police. However, she decided not to call them and went to bed. About an hour later, Rannigan was awakened by sirens and flashing lights and went outside to talk with the police. She learned that the car still parked at Nunley's was the victim's patrol car. Rannigan said there was a distinct difference in the shots she had heard. She identified a sketch she had drawn of the truck and described it as being very similar to a photograph she was shown. On cross-examination, Rannigan testified that after she heard the gunshots, she heard a door slam. The truck pulled out of Nunley's parking lot five to seven minutes later. Officer Kevin Floyd of the HCSD testified that in the late night hours of September 5, 2001, he was on patrol in the Ooltewah area. The victim was also on patrol that night and was assigned to the East Brainerd section of town in an area that included Nunley's fruit stand. Officer Floyd said that about 11:30 p.m., he and the victim responded to a burglar alarm call. About 1:00 a.m., Officer Floyd heard the victim respond to a barking dog call on White Road, about one mile from Nunley's. Officer Floyd said the victim reported being back in service sometime after 1:20 a.m., and Officer Floyd did not hear from the victim again. Officer Floyd said he was dispatched to look for the victim at 2:25 a.m. Officer Floyd testified that he discovered the victim lying in the middle of Nunley's parking lot at 2:38 a.m. He went to the victim, saw a lot of blood, and called for an ambulance. At 2:39 a.m., Officer Floyd reported to dispatch that the victim was dead. Officer Floyd backed his car away, checked to see if anyone was in the area, and began taping off the crime scene until other officers arrived. He said that inner and outer perimeters were taped off and that no one besides himself, his supervisor, and medical personnel went into the area near the victim. On cross-examination, Officer Floyd testified that he did not notice whether any of the produce or boards at the fruit stand had been knocked down or vandalized. Sergeant Stan Hardy of the HCSD testified that he responded to the crime scene at 2:41 a.m and helped Officer Floyd secure the perimeters. Sergeant Hardy drove the same model of patrol car that the victim drove, a 1999 Ford Crown Victoria. Sergeant Hardy noted that the brake pedal for that model car had to be depressed before it could be driven. On crossexamination, Sergeant Hardy testified that when he arrived at the crime scene, the victim's car doors were closed and the headlights were on. He said the crime scene was tightly controlled. Murphy Cantrelle testified that he lived next door to Mike Chattin for three or four years but later moved to Louisiana. About one month before the victim's death, Cantrelle was considering moving back to Tennessee and stayed at Chattin's house while he looked for employment. During that time, Cantrelle also helped Chattin remodel his home. He said that his wife remained in Louisiana and that her car, a silver Honda Accord, was not in Chattanooga on the day of the murder. On September 5, 2001, Cantrelle was at Chattin's house. He said that he left that night about 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. but that Carol Bishop, Kiser, and Chattin remained at Chattin's home. Cantrelle described Kiser as wearing shorts and a t-shirt that night. Cantrelle testified that he had met Kiser through Chattin and that he was aware Kiser had "a lawsuit or something against somebody, a cop or something." Cantrelle said he was sleeping at Carol Bishop's house on the night of September 5/6 and was awakened by Chattin and Bishop entering the house about 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Cantrelle overhead them say "something about [Kiser] had shot a cop or something, and that was it." Cantrelle said that shortly after the victim's death, he moved to Cleveland, Tennessee. On cross-examination, Cantrelle denied "running off" when approached by a defense investigator for the case. He said he really did not know Kiser at all. Cantrelle agreed that he once had a successful trucking business and still had family, including an ex-wife and two children, in Louisiana. He denied that he had refused to return to Louisiana because an arrest warrant for non-payment of child support had been issued there. Cantrelle said that he was six feet, one inch tall and estimated that Chattin was about five feet, six inches tall. He said that on September 5, he did not remember Kiser's having a telephone conversation and telling him and Carl Hankins that they needed to leave because something was going to happen. He said that he saw Kiser drink a quart of beer that night and that no one at the house appeared mad about anything or was planning to commit a crime. After hearing Chattin say that Kiser had shot a police officer, Chattin dialed the police's telephone number on his cellular telephone. However, Cantrelle did not know whether Chattin spoke with the police over the phone. Cantrelle heard some sirens in the distance but eventually went back to bed. Cantrelle denied knowing anything about the victim's murder and denied using methamphetamine with Chattin. He said he had never seen a camouflaged rifle at Chattin's house and denied helping Chattin put a muzzle break on the weapon. He acknowledged that he had been charged in Bradley County with property theft of $2,000. Sergeant Craig Johnson, the Supervisor for the Chattanooga Police Department's Crime Scene Unit, testified that he reported to the crime scene at 4:15 a.m. and began searching for evidence. Sergeant Johnson noted that the victim was found with his shirt open and that the victim's firearm and the front portion of his bulletproof vest were missing. A button found at the scene was consistent with the victim's shirt having been ripped open. He observed injuries to the victim's mouth, hand, arm, and wrist and knee areas and a pool of blood beneath him. Blood was not present on the front of the victim's shirt in the area where his bulletproof vest would have been, but blood was present on the back panel of the vest. Two bullet holes were also in the vest's back panel. Several pieces of the victim's gun belt were scattered around the lot. The victim's activity log indicated that he had returned to patrol after his last call at 1:28 a.m., but it made no reference to a stop at Nunley's. Sergeant Johnson said that the victim carried a .40 caliber weapon and that three .40 caliber shell casings were found at the scene. Sergeant Johnson stated that he was present at the victim's autopsy and performed gunshot residue tests on the victim's hands. At trial, Sergeant Johnson identified bullets recovered from the victim's abdomen, shoulder, and pelvis during the autopsy. Sergeant Johnson testified that Mike Chattin's house was about one mile from the crime scene. On the afternoon of September 6, crime scene officers discovered the front panel from a bulletproof vest in Chattin's backyard, and serial numbers showed the front panel matched the back panel from the victim's vest. Officers also found sweat clothes, a boot, and a .40 caliber Glock handgun just below the rear deck of Chattin's house. In addition to the shell casings found during the initial investigation, officers found three additional 7.62x39 shell casings at the crime scene on separate dates from September 2001 to June 2002. On cross-examination, Sergeant Johnson testified that although the victim's death occurred outside the Chattanooga city limits, the HCSD requested that the Chattanooga Police Department investigate the victim's death. Sergeant Johnson said that when he first observed the victim's patrol car, its headlights were turned on, but the car's blue lights and more powerful spotlights, used to better illuminate a scene, were not on. The front driver and passenger windows were down. Sergeant Johnson said that his crime scene unit spent well into the afternoon of September 6 at the scene and that a black truck that had been parked in the vicinity of the produce stand was towed to the police department for processing. Sergeant Johnson said that in addition to the handgun, boot, vest panel, and clothing found under the deck at Chattin's house, officers collected many other items that they did not catalog. On redirect examination, Sergeant Johnson testified that items found just inside the door to the unfinished basement of Chattin's house included a backpack, a cellular telephone, a pair of sunglasses, and a white sock. Chattanooga Police Department Sergeant Mark Haskins, a SWAT team sniper, testified that he and his unit were dispatched to Chattin's house on September 6 and were advised that "a party there . . . had killed a sheriff's deputy." Sergeant Haskins and his team surrounded the house and finished setting up surveillance after daylight. Sergeant Haskins was using a variable scope mounted on his rifle that allowed him to observe things located several hundred yards away. From his vantage point, Sergeant Haskins saw Kiser walk onto the deck at the rear of the house. Kiser was carrying some items in his arms and dropped the items over the balcony. Sergeant Haskins said he had no doubt the person he saw was Kiser. On cross-examination, Sergeant Haskins testified that he was low to the ground and was looking up at Kiser when Kiser dropped the items. Sergeant Haskins could not tell what specific items Kiser dropped, although they were somewhat "flat." Sergeant Haskins and other officers saw the general area where the items fell and later saw the partial vest, clothing, and a boot near a tire. Officer Johnny Rogers testified that he was a SWAT team sniper observer in September 2001 and went to Chattin's house with the team. He said that sometime after daylight, he saw Kiser walk out onto the balcony carrying something in his arms, go to the deck rail, drop something over the rail, and go back inside the house. After Kiser was taken into custody a short time later, Officer Rogers said he and Sergeant Haskins went to see what Kiser had dropped. Officer Rogers saw a pistol and part of a bulletproof vest inside some tires. He said the weapon appeared to be the same type of Glock handgun that he knew sheriff's deputies carried. HCSD Detective Mark King testified that he also observed Kiser at Chattin's house a few hours after the victim's death. Without using any magnification device, Detective King was able to see Kiser throw items over the deck rail. Kiser then "glanced around" and went back inside the house. Ten to twenty minutes later, Detective King saw Kiser come out of Chattin's basement. Chattanooga PD Officer George Forbes, Jr., testified that he was one of the SWAT team members that responded to Chattin's house. He was positioned near a maroon Dodge pickup truck parked on the side of the house and saw Kiser walk onto the deck and throw something over the side. The item "made a thump when it landed." A few minutes later, the basement door opened, and Officer Forbes heard footsteps crunching on the gravel around the truck. Forbes repeatedly ordered Kiser to lie down on the ground. Two other officers "came around and grabbed him and dragged him to the back of the house to place him into custody." Officer Forbes said Kiser was walking in the general direction of a red Camaro parked in front of the pickup truck when he was stopped. Kiser left the basement door open when he exited, and Officer Forbes saw a semiautomatic assault rifle propped up against the side of the door jamb. Officer Forbes heard a commotion and heard Kiser say, "Fu** you. Give me more. Bitch, is that all you got?" as officers took Kiser into custody. On cross-examination, Officer Forbes testified that Kiser cooperated when he ordered Kiser to lie on the ground but that he heard Kiser actively resisting as officers instructed him to put his hands behind his back. Officer Forbes said Kiser looked different that morning than Kiser's jail booking photograph depicted. Chattanooga PD Officer David Roddy, a SWAT team squad leader, testified that he watched as Officer Kevin Kincer, another squad leader, grabbed Kiser by his wrists and dragged him away from the house to take him into custody. Officer Roddy stated that as he began to handcuff Kiser, Kiser "came up on all fours, looked at me and sprang up on all fours and dove towards my gun." Officer Roddy said he locked Kiser's arms and punched Kiser once behind the ear "just to put him down and not let him have any access to my weapon." Officer Roddy put both knees on Kiser's shoulder, and other officers again tried to handcuff him. Kiser repeatedly said, "Fu** you. Give me more of that. Is that all you got?" while four or five officers struggled to control him. Officer Roddy said he hit Kiser once or twice because Kiser was still trying to obtain Officer Roddy's weapon. Once Kiser was handcuffed, the officers took him away from the scene to obtain medical attention. Officer Roddy said the SWAT team filed a "use-of-force" report regarding Kiser's arrest. He said that it took "every bit" of the force used against Kiser to apprehend him and that Kiser never stopped fighting until he was totally subdued. SWAT team Officers Daniel Anderson and Kevin Kincer testified consistently with the other team members that Kiser attempted to grab Officer Roddy's weapon and that it took several minutes to subdue and handcuff him. Chattanooga Fire Department Captain Craig Haney testified that he investigated a possible arson at Nunley's fruit stand on the afternoon of September 6, 2001. He noticed a gasoline-type odor that grew stronger near a black Ford pickup truck parked in the area. He observed a "greasy film" across the truck's windshield that ran off the truck's sides and hood. Chattanooga PD Investigator Chad Rowe testified that he collected three tomatoes that were found near the black pickup truck. Efforts to obtain fingerprints from the tomatoes were unsuccessful. Investigator Rowe found three .40 caliber shell casings and eight 7.62 Wolf shell casings at the scene on September 6. He stated that three additional Wolf casings were later recovered from the scene. Investigator Rowe processed the black pickup truck but found no fingerprints or blood on its exterior. His external examination of the Dodge Ram pickup truck parked at Mike Chattin's house revealed a bullet hole in the side and what appeared to be blood. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) Special Agent Forensic Scientist Oakley W. McKinney testified that he processed evidence in this case. No fingerprints were found on Kiser's rifle, the victim's service revolver, or any of the retrieved shell casings. Two fingerprints recovered from the Dodge Ram's driver's door matched Kiser's fingerprints, and fingerprints recovered from the right rear of the truck matched Kiser's right and left palm prints. Agent McKinney was positive Kiser had touched the door to the Dodge truck, but he could not determine from his examinations whether Kiser was ever inside the truck. In addition to Kiser, Agent McKinney compared the print evidence with prints taken from Mike Chattin, Carol Bishop, the victim, Murphy Cantrelle, and James Bice. Agent McKinney said he personally lifted prints from the exterior and interior of the victim's patrol car. Of those that were identifiable, some belonged to the victim, and none belonged to Kiser. TBI Firearms Examiner Teri Arney testified that she test-fired Kiser's camouflaged rifle and examined the shell casings recovered from the crime scene. She determined that all eight casings had been fired from Kiser’s rifle and that all three .40 caliber cartridges had been fired from the victim’s weapon. Three 7.62 caliber bullets recovered from the victim’s body were also fired from Kiser’s rifle. Detective Darrell Whitfield of the Chattanooga PD testified that he took casts of boot prints found beside the black pickup truck parked at the crime scene. He also found two Glock shell casings a few feet from the victim's shoulder area. Tim Commers of the Chattanooga PD testified that he went to Mike Chattin's house about 1:00 p.m. on September 6, 2001, and collected part of a Kevlar vest, sweat clothes, a pair of boots, and a .40 caliber Glock pistol from below a deck at the rear of the house. He said the left boot, a size thirteen, and the pistol were found inside a tire under the deck. The clothing included black sweat pants, a black t-shirt, and a hooded black sweatshirt. A rifle was found inside the basement along with two magazine clips taped to each other and taped to the rifle. A backpack, a pair of yellow sunglasses, a cellular telephone, and a white sock were found nearby. A spool of fishing line, a canister, and a plastic bag containing three boxes of Wolf 7.62x39 ammunition were in the backpack. A black ski mask, a bandana, a hat, a Crown Royal bag, and mesh camouflaged material were also in the backpack. Commers searched the red Camaro parked at the residence and noticed that it had a broken headlight. Three live rounds of Wolf rifle ammunition were recovered from a toolbox in the car. Mario Cunningham from the Chattanooga PD's Crime Scene Unit testified that he took a gunshot residue sample from Mike Chattin on September 6, 2001, at 11:20 a.m. He stated that gun cleaning solvent, high velocity 30-30 shells, and other types of ammunition, including 42 rounds of .22 caliber shells, were recovered from Chattin’s garage. Royellen LaMarre from the Chattanooga PD testified that she took a gunshot residue sample from Carol Bishop on September 6. On cross-examination, she testified that she also collected items from inside Mike Chattin's house. Those items included live rounds of ammunition that were on a table by Chattin's bed; a gun cabinet standing in the middle of the room with live rounds in it; other live rounds; a "gun bible"; and four weapons, including a 12-gauge shotgun, a .380 "long gun," and two rifles. Lamarre said a total of 1,214 live rounds of ammunition were collected from Chattin's home, mostly from Chattin's and Kiser's bedrooms. In Kiser's bedroom, a box of ammunition was under the bed and a white sock in a dresser contained 20 rounds of 7.62x39 ammunition. Over 300 of the live rounds collected from the home came from Kiser's bedroom, and boxes of Wolf ammunition were there but nowhere else in Chattin's house. Ed Duke testified that in September 2001, he was an investigator for the Chattanooga PD's Crime Scene Unit. He collected a gunshot residue sample from Kiser at 5:15 p.m. on September 6, about 9 hours after Kiser was taken into custody and about 16 hours after the shooting at Nunley's. James Russell Davis, II, a special agent and forensic scientist with the TBI, testified that he performed microanalysis on gunshot residue tests collected from the victim, Carol Bishop, Mike Chattin, and Kiser. As to the victim, the test results were inconclusive as to whether the victim fired, handled, or was near a gun when it fired. No elements indicative of gunshot residue were present on Bishop's or Chattin's tests. Elements indicative of gunshot residue were present on Kiser's test, which indicated Kiser could have fired, handled, or was near a gun when it was fired. Davis said that gunshot residue is basically held in the oils on a person's hands and that the residue is more likely to wear off over time. Also, the residue will disappear very quickly if a person washes his hands with soap and water. Davis found that particles consistent with gunshot primer residue were present on a sweatshirt and a pair of sweat pants he tested. Davis found no evidence of gunshot residue or particles on the clothing Kiser was wearing when he was arrested. On cross-examination, Davis said that gunshot residue tests cannot show conclusively whether someone fired a weapon or only handled or was near a weapon that had been fired. He said it was possible for a small amount of residue to transfer from one person to another. Davis agreed that it was not absolutely possible to tell from the test results whether any of the subjects he tested had fired a gun or not. He said the test was often used as an investigative tool to determine which suspects investigators should focus on. Davis said that when he found that a test, such as Chattin’s, did not have significant levels of all of the components of gunshot residue, he listed it as "absent." However, this did not eliminate the possibility that the person fired, handled, or was near a gun when it was fired. Regarding Kiser's test, Davis said he had never analyzed a test taken so long after a shooting incident. TBI Special Agent Forensic Scientist Linda Leigh Littlejohn testified that she specialized in shoe print, fiber, and physical comparisons. Her examination of the evidence in this case indicated that partial shoe tracks found near the black truck at the scene of the shooting were consistent in size, shape, and tread design with the left boot recovered from Chattin’s house. Agent Littlejohn concluded that the prints could have been made by the boot recovered at Chattin’s home or one exactly like it. She observed that the hooded sweat jacket was unusual in that someone had sewn a camouflaged burlap material onto the back. In vacuumings taken from the driver's seat of the victim's patrol car, Agent Littlejohn found fibers consistent with or matching those from the burlap material on the sweat jacket. She concluded that the fibers from the patrol car could have come from the sweat jacket or another identical piece of fabric. Agent Littlejohn noted that the burlap was sewn onto the sweat jacket with fishing line that was consistent with other fishing line found on and inside the backpack she examined. She could not say that the fishing line came from the same roll of line found in the backpack. On cross-examination, Agent Littlejohn testified that the nature of fiber comparisons did not allow her to positively identify the source of a fiber to the exclusion of all others. Amy Michaud testified that she worked for the FBI Crime Laboratory in the Trace Evidence Unit at Quantico, Virginia and analyzed hair and fiber evidence. From evidence she examined in this case, Michaud concluded that a pubic hair found in debris scraped from the hooded sweat jacket was microscopically similar to a hair sample obtained from Kiser's pubic region and dissimilar to a sample collected from the victim. Two Caucasian head hairs found in debris scraped from a t-shirt "exhibited similar microscopic characteristics with slight differences" to a head hair sample collected from Kiser. The two hairs were dissimilar, however, to samples obtained from the victim, Mike Chattin, and Murphy Cantrelle. Scrapings taken from the sweat pants revealed three pubic hairs that were similar to Kiser's sample. In summary, Michaud said all the hairs she examined showed similarities with Kiser's sample, and she could not exclude Kiser as their source but excluded the other persons. Michaud also performed fiber testing and concluded that fibers from the sweat pants and the t-shirt were similar to those found in the vacuumings taken from the driver's seat of the victim's car. On cross-examination, Michaud testified that hairs are unlike fingerprints and are not positively identifiable. Thus, she could not say the hair samples definitively belonged to Kiser. She said microscopic hair comparisons narrow the source of a hair to a very small part of the population and that she had never seen two individuals whose hair she had not been able to distinguish. Michaud could not positively identify the source of the burlap fibers found in the victim's patrol car as the burlap material attached to the sweat jacket. Laura Hodge testified that she worked in the microanalysis section of the TBI Crime Laboratory and performed fire debris and gunshot residue analysis on some of the evidence in this case. She had the ability to detect gasoline-range products on clothing and in soil samples. She said a soil sample collected from underneath the black pickup truck parked at the murder scene revealed the presence of gasoline-range product, which included all brands and grades of automotive gasoline. She said gasoline-range product was also present on the boots, sweat jacket, sweat pants, and t-shirt she examined. On cross-examination, Hodge testified that she could not tell how long the gasoline had been on the items and that she could not determine whether the gasoline found on the clothing was the same brand or grade as that found in the soil sample. Dr. Qadriyyah Pillow, a TBI forensic scientist and DNA analyst, testified that she extracted DNA from the waistband of the sweat pants and compared the DNA profile with DNA in blood samples collected from the victim, Mike Chattin, Murphy Cantrelle, and Kiser. She said that the DNA from the waistband matched Kiser's DNA profile and excluded the other profiles and that the probability of an unrelated person having the same profile as Kiser exceeded the current world population. Dr. Pillow also compared DNA collected from blood on the maroon Dodge pickup truck with the victim's DNA profile and concluded that they matched. On crossexamination, Dr. Pillow testified that her examination of the exterior and interior of the victim's patrol car did not reveal the presence of any human blood. The victim's blood was present on the Dodge truck's right fender and hood. No blood was detected on the boots, sweat pants, t-shirt or sweat jacket. Dr. Stanton Kessler, a medical examiner and forensic pathologist, testified that he performed the victim’s autopsy on September 6, 2001. He stated that the victim died of multiple severe gunshot wounds. He said that most of the wounds were made with a large caliber weapon and that the wounds were spread over the victim's body from his mouth and neck to his arms, abdomen, thigh, and knee. Nine wounds were gunshot wounds and one was a graze wound. Seven of the gunshot wounds appeared to come from a high-powered weapon, and the other two could have come from a .40 caliber Glock pistol, the victim's weapon. Dr. Kessler concluded that the gunshots were fired upward from a downward direction, consistent with someone being on the ground and shooting up at the victim as he stood. The bullets tore many of the victim's organs, large vessels, and bones and caused extensive internal bleeding. The gunshot wound in the victim's mouth occurred while the victim's mouth was partially open, rupturing the victim's lips, and exited the base of the victim's skull. Chattanooga PD Officer Perry Walden testified that in the early morning hours of September 6, he was driving home from work and saw several police cars with their blue lights on passing him in the area. He followed them to the crime scene and learned of the victim’s death. An officer told him the police were looking for a maroon truck. Officer Walden left the scene and went to the Golden Gallon convenience store for coffee about 4:00 a.m. As he entered the store, he heard a car "accelerating, flying into the parking lot." Walden said the driver came inside, asked if he was a police officer, and said, "My buddy just killed a policeman." The man identified himself as Mike Chattin and told Officer Walden that his buddy’s name was Marlon Duane Kiser. Chattin further said Kiser was at Chattin’s home at 8512 East Brainerd and was driving a maroon Dodge truck. Officer Walden noticed that Chattin was driving a red Corvette. Chattin told Officer Walden that he had tried to contact Sam Collins, whom Walden believed was a county police officer. Chattin told Officer Walden that Kiser was dangerous and that some guns were in Chattin's house, including an "AK-47, a pistol, and a 12-gauge." Chattanooga PD Officer William Curvin testified that he was dispatched to the Golden Gallon and saw Officer Walden talking with Mike Chattin. He described Chattin as "obviously extremely upset, shaking all over, legs, arms, he was trembling, chain smoking cigarettes." Officer Curvin said Chattin told them, "I didn’t do it, . . . Duane Kiser killed the deputy." Officer Curvin said that he allowed Chattin to continue talking and that Chattin told them the following: Kiser came to Chattin’s house with a police handgun and one-half of a vest and told Chattin that he had just killed a deputy. Kiser described the killing as "a big stress reliever." Kiser had been beaten up by some police previously and "wanted to get even." Kiser asked Chattin if Chattin wanted Kiser to kill anyone else for him because Kiser did not believe he had long to live. Chattin told Officer Curvin Kiser had asked Chattin to take him back to the murder scene and drop him off with his rifle "so he could kill as many policemen at the scene as possible before he was killed." Officer Curvin asked Chattin how Kiser originally got to the scene, and Chattin said he had loaned Kiser his maroon pickup truck earlier the previous day. Chattin told Officer Curvin that he had made an excuse to leave his house and had come to the Golden Gallon in order to get away from Kiser. On cross-examination, Officer Curvin acknowledged that the first thing he heard Chattin say was, "I didn't do it" and that some people who have just committed a crime are extremely upset and trembling. James Michael Chattin testified that had lived at his home at 8512 East Brainerd Road for about seventeen years and met Kiser about ten years earlier but had not seen him for a long time until a few months before the murder. According to Chattin, he and Kiser were friends, and Kiser had been renting a room at his house. However, at the time of the murder, Kiser was living with a woman in Soddy Daisy most of the time and was no longer staying at Chattin's house regularly. On the afternoon of September 5, Chattin talked with Kiser by telephone, and he and Kiser hauled gravel to Chattin's father's house. Afterwards, they returned to Chattin's house and hung around with other friends, including Murphy Cantrelle and Carl Hankins. Chattin and Carol Bishop had argued earlier, and Chattin left his home during the evening and brought Bishop back with him. At some point, Hankins left, and Chattin and Bishop took a shower. Kiser had been drinking beer and told Chattin that he had decided to spend the night at Chattin's house. Chattin and Bishop went to bed about 11:30 p.m. Kiser's red Camaro was parked at Chattin's house that night. Although the car's hood had been removed and it had a broken light on one side, the car was still driveable. Chattin said that his own truck was also parked outside and that he had left his keys on a shelf between the dining room and the kitchen. He knew the starter on his truck had a problem, but he did not believe Kiser was aware of this. Chattin testified that he and Bishop went to sleep and that he was awakened sometime after 2:30 a.m. by Bishop telling him someone was knocking on the door. Chattin heard another knock, and Kiser said he needed to speak with Chattin privately. As Chattin followed Kiser to Kiser's room, Kiser told Chattin that he had borrowed Chattin's truck because the headlights on his own car were out. The lights in Kiser's room were dim, and Chattin saw Kiser's gun, a bulletproof vest, and a pistol on Kiser's bed. Chattin said Kiser told him that he had not wanted to "do it that way." When Chattin asked Kiser to explain, Kiser said he had not wanted to leave shell casings and had wanted a whole bulletproof vest, not half of one. Then Kiser told Chattin he had killed a policeman and said, "Guy, I been wanting to tell you I’m a killer." Kiser told Chattin that killing was a "stress relief" and that he had killed fifteen to seventeen other people, including two or three police officers. As they heard ambulance sirens and police cars nearby, Kiser chuckled and said, "It ain’t going to do them no good, they’re too late." Kiser told Chattin that he "needed to get rid of that stuff" and asked Chattin if he wanted the police officer's gun. Chattin said no but offered to get rid of the evidence. However, Kiser pushed him away. Kiser described how he had pulled the victim up and had pulled off his vest. Chattin said Kiser "showed me how when he picked him up how his arms and his head done, how his body done, told me how he hit the ground. And he was laughing and grinning. And he told me that it made him feel so good, that he picked him up and done it again." Kiser told Chattin that out of caution, he wiped off the bullets he had used with a white sock. Chattin testified that he could hear police sirens. Kiser went outside to talk with a neighbor and then told Chattin, "Guy, there’s a bunch of them down there and if you’re any kind of friend of mine at all, you’ll take me riding around and drop me off down there." Chattin said Kiser wanted to return to the scene and kill more policemen. Kiser told Chattin that he could not get Chattin’s truck started at the murder scene, so he got into the victim's police car with its engine still running but could not get it into gear. Eventually, Kiser got Chattin's truck started. Kiser told Chattin that he had brought him a "present" and gave him a couple of small bowls of tomatoes. Chattin put the tomatoes in his refrigerator. After relating the details of the murder to Chattin, Kiser said, "[Charlie Sims has] got to know about this." Chattin testified that he returned to bed and told Bishop about the murder. They decided to leave by making an excuse that Bishop was taking Chattin to eat breakfast. Chattin told Kiser they would bring back something for him to eat, and Kiser told them to "have a good time." Chattin told Bishop to drive to her home. He gave her his gun, telling her to shoot Kiser if Kiser came to her house. Chattin drove himself to the Golden Gallon and got gas for his car. He stated that he tried to telephone his friend Sam Collins, a police officer. Chattin left the Golden Gallon, drove to Bishop's home to check on her, tried to call Collins one more time, and telephoned 911 from his cellular telephone as he was backing out of Bishop's driveway. He then returned to the Golden Gallon and spoke with the police. Chattin testified that when he, Hankins, and Kiser had stopped at Charlie Sims' fruit stand a few weeks earlier, Kiser had learned that Sims believed Nunley was responsible for burning down Sims' fruit stand. Kiser had said, "I ought to go up there and act like I'm drunk and fall over that guy's fruit stuff and knock it off." Kiser also "said something to the effect of tying [Nunley] and dragging him behind the truck." Chattin said Kiser never said anything about burning Nunley's fruit stand. On cross-examination, Chattin testified that he did not give Kiser permission to drive his truck that day and did not tell the police he had given Kiser permission to drive it. He said he tried to telephone Sam Collins before calling 911 because he was scared and believed Collins would tell him what to do. After putting gas in his car at the Golden Gallon, Chattin went inside and paid for it but did not tell the clerk that a police officer had been shot. Chattin said Kiser had moved into his house about June 1, 2001. Chattin explained that he needed help with the rent because his wife had moved out. He said that they were married for twenty years and that her leaving upset him. He said Kiser had told him that a police officer had wanted to "date [Chattin's wife] or something." He acknowledged that his wife had taken out an order of protection against him and that he had bought and used cocaine previously. Regarding the murder, Chattin acknowledged that Kiser said he shot the victim four or five times and told him the victim had "got a shot off." Kiser told Chattin that he had borrowed his truck but never told Chattin that the truck had a bullet hole in it. Chattin said he did not kill the victim and never told anyone that he did. He said Kiser told him that Kiser "went up there to burn the fruit stand." Chattin said Kiser told him that when he saw the victim pull into the fruit stand parking lot, he crouched behind Chattin’s truck and saw the victim walk over to Chattin's truck. Kiser came out from behind the truck and shot the victim. Chattin said Kiser did not have blood all over him when Kiser told him about the murder. Chattin said Kiser claimed that he had tried to burn the fruit stand by pouring something on it but that the stand would not burn. Chattin testified that he camouflaged Kiser's rifle with camouflage coloring and welded the homemade muzzle break onto it. Chattin denied telling Kiser to bring the gun to Chattin’s house on September 5 in exchange for rent that Chattin believed Kiser owed. Chattin said he had several types of ammunition in his home, including some 7.62x39 that he had given Kiser. Regarding his wife, Chattin denied that he was jealous of other people talking with her or that he ever went to the restaurant where she worked in order to watch her. He said Kiser once told him that a policeman was interested in dating his wife. However, he denied that the alleged policeman was the same officer who had served him with the protective order. Chattin testified that Kiser had showed him some gun and "soldier magazines" previously but that they never discussed hunting. When Chattin and Bishop went to bed on September 5, Kiser told them goodnight and did not appear to be mad or upset. Chattin recalled that Kiser said he stood over the victim and shot him, but Chattin could not remember whether Kiser said he used his own gun or the victim’s gun. Chattin acknowledged that he did not try to telephone the police from his home phone because he was afraid Kiser would pick up the extension or hear him talking. Chattin said Kiser was not excited while telling him about the murder but "was very calm, [and] showed great pleasure." Chattin said that Kiser told him Kiser had "twisted his feet" while at the scene that night to avoid leaving footprints. Carol Bishop, Mike Chattin's girlfriend, testified that she went to Chattin's house on September 5 about 10:00 p.m. Kiser was there, and Murphy Cantrelle and Carl Hankins were getting ready to leave. About 10:30 p.m., Bishop and Chattin went to bed. About 2:30 a.m., Kiser knocked on their bedroom door and said, "Mike I need to talk to you in private." Bishop woke up Chattin, and Chattin left the room in order to speak with Kiser. About thirty minutes later, Chattin returned to the bedroom and told Bishop about the murder. Bishop and Chattin tried to come up with an excuse to leave the house. They decided to tell Kiser they were going to go eat breakfast before Bishop went to work. They left in separate cars, and Bishop drove home while Chattin drove to get gas. Chattin then drove to Bishop's house, tried to call Sam Collins, called 911, and left to go meet the police. On cross-examination, Bishop testified that she did not remember ever seeing Kiser with a gun at Chattin's house. Bishop had known Chattin for years, and they began dating a couple of months before the murder. She denied telling a former employee that Kiser did not shoot the victim. On redirect examination, Bishop testified that she knew the victim well. She described him as her "guardian angel" who would check on her during her work shift at the convenience store and had once responded when someone tried to rob her. The State recalled Mike Chattin to testify. He identified size eleven boots he wore on the night of the victim's death. On cross-examination, he denied telling anyone that he was eating a bowl of cereal when Kiser told him that Kiser had killed the victim. He also denied telling anyone that he jumped out a window in order to escape from his house and telephone the police or that Kiser had blood all over his shirt. The State rested its case-in-chief. Billy Womack testified for Kiser that he had known Mike Chattin for six or seven years. He said that on the afternoon of September 6, Chattin came to his house. Chattin told Womack that he had been in the shower when Kiser came running through the door and said he had just shot an officer. Womack said Chattin told him that "he grabbed his boots, got in his car and left and called 911 coming down the street that I live on." Joanne Cox testified that on the weekend before the murder, Mike Chattin came to her house and "was making statements about he wanted to kill somebody or burn something. He was completely different than what he'd ever been." On cross-examination, she said her husband, Danny Cox, was in federal prison on a drug conviction at the time of Kiser's trial. She said her husband sold drugs, but she did not know whether he sold any to Chattin. Cox said that the night she observed Chattin was actually the night before the murder "because it was all on the news the next morning." She said Chattin never told her he had killed a police officer. Mildred Pamela Treadway testified that at the time of the murder, she lived next door to Mike Chattin and did not like him. She had met Kiser about four times. According to Treadway, in May 2001, Chattin asked her to lie to a "cop" and tell him that Chattin was not at home. The officer left his card from the HCSD in Chattin's door. Later that night, Chattin came to her house, put some papers and a nine millimeter gun on her table, and said he was "going to kill him a cop." Chattin said he had gone to the Sonic Drive-In to see his wife and saw her talking to an officer there. Regarding the murder, Treadway said she saw Kiser on September 6 after 2:00 a.m. when they both came outside to watch police cars driving up and down East Brainerd. She said Kiser was wearing shorts and a tank top and looked like he had just woken up. At about the same time, Treadway saw Murphy Cantrelle packing something into a silver hatchback car. She said that Bishop and Chattin had left around midnight and returned thirty minutes later. Bishop and Chattin then left again driving separate cars. Treadway said that she could see inside Chattin's house from her house, that she saw Kiser sleeping on the couch that night, and that Kiser never left Chattin's house. At the time of the trial, Treadway had moved back to Georgia, saying she had grown tired of Chattin threatening her. She said Chattin threatened to set her basement on fire, took out her security lights, and called her "a lying bitch." Chattin also told her to keep her mouth shut or he would shut it for her. She said that on the night of the murder, Cantrelle left Chattin's house in the Dodge pickup truck about 1:30 a.m. and was gone for "quite a while." He returned and left again in the car he had loaded with "garbage bags and stuff." On crossexamination, Treadway said the officer that delivered the card to Chattin's door was the victim. Kimberly Bowman testified that she currently was serving a federal prison sentence for a drug conspiracy conviction. Her common-law husband, Greg Drake, and Mike Chattin were good friends. Bowman said that sometime before the murder, she overheard two conversations between Drake and Chattin. First, Chattin told Drake that his wife was having an affair with someone she worked with at the Sonic. Chattin said he would hurt the man if he ever saw them together. Later, Chattin told Drake that if Drake "ever got busted with our drugs," he should not tell the police that Chattin had supplied Drake with some guns. Chattin also told Drake that he believed his wife was having an affair with a police officer. After the murder, Chattin told Drake "about his roommate killing a police officer." On cross-examination, Bowman testified that before Chattin and his wife separated, she never heard Chattin's wife say anything about dating a police officer. Melissa Ann Terrell testified that and she and her ex-boyfriend were friends with Mike Chattin and his wife, Tina. She said her boyfriend came home one night and reported that Mike Chattin was very upset because his wife had left him. Chattin thought she was dating a police officer. Chattin told Terrell he was being harassed by the PD because his wife had taken out a restraining order against him. Despite the restraining order, Chattin kept sending flowers and letters to his wife at the Sonic, which violated the terms of the order. Terrell said that the police went to Chattin's house to talk with him about violating the order and that "he occasionally wouldn't open the door or thought he was being harassed by the police." On cross-examination, Terrell testified that Tina Chattin left Mike Chattin in August 2001. Terrell later learned that Tina Chattin left town a long time before the murder with a man who worked at the Sonic. Terrell acknowledged that the man was not a police officer. Dimple Walker testified she worked at the Golden Gallon with Carol Bishop. When Bishop came to work on September 6, Walker questioned her about the murder. Walker stated that she asked Bishop if Kiser had killed the victim and that Bishop said no. Walker then asked Bishop if Mike Chattin had killed the victim, and Bishop said, "I can't talk about it, I'm scared for my life." Danny Cox testified that he was serving time in a federal prison for a drug conviction. Cox had worked with and sold drugs to Mike Chattin, and he described Chattin as his "best customer." Cox said Chattin had been repairing Cox's car around the time of the murder. On September 6, Cox telephoned Chattin's house about 1:30 a.m. to check on his car. Cox said he called two or three times and that Kiser answered the telephone each time and told him Chattin was not there. Cox said that during the week before the murder, Chattin came to his house to buy drugs. Chattin also offered him a large amount of money to go to California and kill Tina Chattin's new husband. Cox said that in 2002, Chattin tried to sell him some weapons. According to Cox, Chattin came to his house the evening before the victim's murder and bought a large quantity of crack cocaine. The next morning, Chattin returned and said Kiser "had held him and his old lady, Tina, hostage and he had to jump out the window to go down to the fruit stand to call the police to let them know that Kiser was in the house, in Chattin's house." Cox said Chattin also told him Kiser had borrowed his truck the night before and had brought back a police vest and a gun for a "souvenir." Cox said Chattin told him that he feared for his life, but Chattin appeared calm when he was telling Cox about the night's events. On cross-examination, Cox acknowledged that Chattin told him Kiser killed a police officer. He stated that he suspected Chattin later turned him in to federal authorities. When asked whether there was such a thing as "payback," Cox said, "That's what I'm doing." On redirect examination, Cox testified that he was not receiving anything in exchange for his testimony and that he had no reason to lie about Chattin or Kiser. Gregory David Drake, also a federal prisoner, testified that he met Chattin through a mutual friend and purchased guns from Chattin, including one camouflaged weapon. Drake talked with Chattin after the victim's death, and Chattin told Drake that "his roommate came in bragging about he had shot a police officer, . . . took his vest and gun." In late September or early October 2001, Chattin wanted to buy back the camouflaged gun he had sold to Drake. Drake believed Chattin wanted the gun back because Chattin "was under the assumption that if I got arrested, that the police would find the weapon and he did not want the police to know where the weapon came from." On cross-examination, Drake acknowledged that the camouflaged weapon he purchased from Chattin had nothing to do with the victim's death and that he was in possession of the gun at the time of the murder. Derrick Williams testified that he was serving a twenty-year sentence in federal prison for selling cocaine. He said that he had sold drugs to Mike Chattin and that Chattin had tried to sell him some weapons. After Chattin's wife left him, Chattin cried a lot and told Williams that "if he could find the guy, he would do something to him." Regarding the murder, Chattin told Williams that Kiser woke Chattin and his girlfriend and that Kiser told Chattin he had killed a police officer. Chattin said he left the house and telephoned the police. Chattin also said Kiser had a gun and a vest in his hand and had blood all over his shirt. Sara Adair testified that she worked at the Sonic with Tina Chattin in 2001. She said that on two or three occasions, Tina Chattin's husband parked in a next door parking lot and watched his wife work, sometimes for several hours. On cross-examination, Adair testified that this happened about six months before the murder, during the Chattins' divorce. Adair said that Tina Chattin left town with a cook named John Hunt who also worked at the Sonic. To Adair's knowledge, Tina Chattin never dated a police officer. Karen Enders and Betty Colter, Tina Chattin's fellow workers at the Sonic, gave similar testimony to Adair. Dr. Marilyn Miller testified that she taught forensic science and crime scene investigation at the University of New Haven and that the defense hired her to evaluate the physical evidence in this case. Dr. Miller reviewed all of the crime scene photographs, videotapes, forensic testing results, autopsy reports, and over two hundred items of evidence and visited the crime scene. She did not test any evidence independently. From her examination and evaluation of the investigation, Dr. Miller noted the following areas of concern: (1) first responders to the crime scene were not used efficiently; (2) a mirror on the victim's patrol car was used to hold up barricade tape, which meant someone had handled the mirror; (3) the entire corner area around the scene could have been blocked off, including the road, so that physical evidence could not have been inadvertently moved or tampered with; (4) no specialized equipment or lights were used to search for biological evidence; (5) no metal detectors were used to search the area for shell casings or other evidence; and (6) as many as seventeen people had entered the crime scene during the three hours after the victim's body was discovered. Dr. Miller testified that she also had concerns about the investigation of Mike Chattin's house where Kiser was taken into custody. She concluded that the house was not sufficiently secured and that there was a lack of evidence processing for the Dodge truck. From her examination of the bullet hole in the truck, Dr. Miller opined that the bullet hole was created from a shot fired from the victim's gun when he was either on the ground or in the process of falling. Dr. Miller concluded that the gunshot residue tests in the case were "meaningless" because interpretation of the highly scientific tests was very difficult. She said that gunshot residue tests can be useful if collected from subjects within up to five hours and the subjects have not been moved or washed their bodies or hands. From the fiber testing results, she concluded that the burlap material attached to the sweat jacket possessed a chemical substance that was not found in the fibers recovered from the victim's patrol car. She said the fibers were similar but did not come from the same source. Dr. Miller testified that no blood was found on Kiser's rifle or the clothing and shoes recovered from Chattin's deck area. She said she would have expected blood to be in the gun's barrel or on the weapon if the victim had been shot while Kiser's rifle was in the victim's mouth. She concluded that if the shooter picked up the victim, shook him, took off his vest, and repeated this procedure, bloodstains and blood spatters would have been on the shooter's clothing. She further noted that no blood was found inside the Dodge pickup or on the backpack. On cross-examination, Dr. Miller testified said that if gunshot residue was found on clothing Kiser was wearing when he was arrested, it would indicate he was in the presence of a firearm being discharged. She concluded that boot prints found at the crime scene were consistent with, but did not match, the boots recovered outside Chattin's house. Tina Marie Hunt testified that she and Mike Chattin were married for seventeen years. She said she left him because of his physical and verbal abuse and his drug abuse. Hunt left Chattin in April 2001 and got a protective order against him a few weeks later because he "had family members and friends coming to my job and just bugging me." Hunt also would see Chattin across the street from the Sonic and saw him drive by. She said she called the police six to eight times to report Chattin's violation of the protective order. She believed the victim responded to one of those calls but was not sure. She knew Kiser from working with him at a grocery store fifteen years earlier. On cross-examination, Hunt testified that she never dated a police officer and that Chattin never accused her of doing so. Hugo Ruiz, an investigator in the public defender's office, testified about the availability of Wolf 7.62x39 caliber ammunition. He described the ammunition as "readily available" in catalogs and stores in the Chattanooga area. Attorney Mike Anderson testified that in April 1999, he filed a federal civil lawsuit on Kiser's behalf against three police officers and the City of Chattanooga. He said that Kiser was involved in an incident with police in April 1998 and that a trial was scheduled for September 17, 2001. At the final pretrial conference, the other parties suggested having settlement discussions. Anderson made an appointment with Kiser for September 6, 2001, at 8:30 a.m. to discuss a settlement and trial preparation in the event there was no settlement. Anderson said Kiser was "very enthusiastic" about the planned meeting. On cross-examination, Anderson was asked to read Kiser's responses to a set of interrogatory questions from the civil case. The questions asked Kiser to describe any losses, physical or mental injuries, or other damages he was claiming. In his July 2001 answer, Kiser described numerous physical injuries and stated that he was forced to move, lost his job, became afraid to be alone, and had "grown to despise the police." The defense rested its case. In the State's rebuttal case, Detective Robert Starnes testified that he and another detective interviewed Chattin's neighbor, Pam Treadway, on her front porch after the victim's death. He said he observed that there was an upward angle from her house to Chattin's house next door and that she could not have seen into Chattin's living room. Detective Starnes observed that on the day of the murder, there also was some type of covering over Chattin's windows that blocked the view from Treadway's house. Detective Starnes stated that he did not see a couch in Chattin's home. Officer John Jenkins of the HCSD testified that about April 26, 2001, he went to Mike Chattin's house to serve an order of protection. Chattin was not home, so Officer Jenkins left his business card with his contact information at the house. Chattin contacted him that afternoon, and they agreed to meet the next morning at which time Officer Jenkins delivered the protective order. Officer Jenkins said Chattin was upset about the trouble he and his wife were having but was not angry. Chattanooga Police Officer Brad Brown testified that he responded to a call from Tina Chattin at the Sonic on May 19, 2001. Tina Chattin reported that her husband had been driving by the restaurant and had sent flowers to her. Officer Brown went to Chattin's house to speak with him, but no one answered the door. Officer Brown left a card on Chattin's door, noting that the restraining order included no indirect contact with his estranged wife. Carol Bishop testified that she never told Dimple Walker Kiser did not murder the victim. She also never told Walker that she was afraid of Mike Chattin. This ended the proof in the guilt/innocence phase of the trial. Following deliberations, the jury returned its verdict, convicting Kiser of first degree premeditated murder, first degree felony murder committed during the perpetration of arson, and first degree felony murder committed during the perpetration of theft. B. Sentencing Phase of Trial Before sentencing, defense counsel notified the trial court of Kiser's decision not to present any mitigating evidence at the sentencing hearing. Following its examination of Kiser, the trial court ruled that Kiser had knowingly, voluntarily, understandingly, and intelligently waived his right to present mitigating evidence and was competent to do so. In the presence of the jury, the defense stated that it would present no further evidence. The State relied on the evidence presented during its case-in-chief. Victim impact statements were also presented. Following deliberations, the jury sentenced Kiser to death for each of Kiser's murder convictions. The jury found that the State had proven the only alleged aggravating circumstance, that the murder was committed against a law enforcement officer engaged in the performance of official duties, and Kiser knew or reasonably should have known that such victim was a law enforcement officer engaged in the performance of official duties. In imposing death sentences, the jury further found that the statutory aggravating circumstance outweighed any mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 20, 2010	Texas	Mohamed-Amine Rahmouni Haitham Zayed Amanda Barfield Tiffany Dotson	Richard Tabler	stayed
Mohamed-Amine Rahmouni managed a topless bar called Teazers, where Richard Lee Tabler worked until he and Rahmouni had a conflict. Rahmouni allegedly told Tabler that he could have Tabler's family wiped out for ten dollars. Tabler decided on November 18, 2004, that he would kill Rahmouni after Thanksgiving. In preparation for killing Rahmouni, Tabler borrowed a 9-millimeter gun, a camcorder, and a pickup truck. Then, on the night of November 25, 2004, which was Thanksgiving Day, Tabler called Rahmouni with an offer to sell him cheap stereo equipment and told him they would meet in the parking lot of a local business. Haitham Zayed drove Rahmouni to the parking lot to meet Tabler around 2:00 a.m. on Friday morning. Tabler and his friend Timothy Payne were waiting for them in the truck that Tabler had borrowed. As soon as Zayed's car stopped, Tabler shot Zayed and then Rahmouni. He then exited the truck and pulled both men from the car. He saw that Rahmouni was still alive, so he shot him a second time. He had Payne videotape part of the shooting. Later that day, the videotape was destroyed after Tabler showed it to a friend. Tabler took a wallet and a black bag that he found inside the car. On the following Sunday night, Tabler was arrested, and in the early morning hours of Monday, November 29, he confessed to the shootings. At punishment, the State introduced evidence that Tabler also confessed to murdering Amanda Barfield and Tiffany Dotson, who were dancers at Teazers, because he believed that they were telling people that he had killed Rahmouni and Zayed.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 20, 2010	Virginia	Stanley Beale Clarence Elwood Threat	Darick Walker	executed
Darick Demorris Walker, 37, was convicted of killing Stanley Beale in 1996 and Clarence Elwood Threat in 1997. Virginia law allows the death penalty for anyone who commits two premeditated murders within three years. Catherine Taylor and her children, Monique, Bianca, and Sidney, lived in the University Terrace Apartments with Stanley Beale, the children's father. On the evening of November 22, 1996, Catherine heard "a boom like noise" in the living room. She left the bedroom where she had been with Sidney, an infant, and as she entered the living room, she saw a man kick in the locked front door. Taylor later identified the man as Darick Walker. Walker was holding a gun yelling, "Where is he?" Walker continued yelling, asking Stanley "what you keep coming up to my door, what you looking for me for?" Stanley, who was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, answered that he did not know Walker and did not know where Walker lived. Bianca, who was 13 years old at the time, shouted at Walker that her father did not know him. Walker began shooting at Stanley as Catherine ushered Bianca and Monique into the bathroom to hide in the bathtub. Walker shot Stanley three times, killing him. Bianca testified that she knew Walker as "Todd" and subsequently identified Walker in a photo line-up as the person who killed her father. A fourteen-year-old girl who was visiting a friend who lived in the University Terrace Apartments testified that on the night of Stanley Beale's murder, she saw a man she knew as "Todd" enter her friend's apartment and say "I shot him." When shown a photo spread, the girl identified Walker as the person who had entered the apartment. On the night of June 18, 1997, Andrea Noble and Clarence Threat were sleeping in their bedroom when they were awakened by a "pop" coming from the screen door, followed by a knock at the door. Andrea went to the door and looked outside through a small window in the door, but did not see anyone. On two subsequent occasions she again heard a knock and went to the door, but did not see anyone. Sometime after the third knock, the door was "kicked open." Andrea went to the living room and saw a person she knew as "Paul" standing with a gun. "Paul" pointed the gun at her as she backed into the bedroom. When they reached the bedroom, "Paul" hit Andrea with the back of the gun and then shot Clarence Threat in the leg. In the bedroom, "Paul" and Clarence exchanged words and "Paul" shot him again. Clarence sustained a total of seven gunshot wounds. He died as a result of a gunshot wound to the chest. The shooter told Andrea that if she told anyone "he would come back and kill me and my kids." At trial, Andrea Noble identified Walker as the person she knew as "Paul." During the punishment phase of the trial, prosecutors introduced Walker's prior convictions for carnal knowledge, forgery, assault, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. The evidence also showed that Walker regularly stole from friends and acquaintances and, in a rage, had punched a pregnant woman in the stomach. In addition, as the trial court noted in imposing sentence in accordance with the jury's recommendation, the commission of two brutal, unprovoked murders within a six month period is a "strong indication . . . that he is prone towards violence."

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 20, 2010	Mississippi	Krystal Dee King, 15	Gerald Holland	executed
On her 15th birthday, Krystal King was beaten, raped, sodomize, stabbed, suffocated and strangled to death. Around 8:00 p.m. on September 11, 1986, 21-year-old Willie Boyer ran into his friend, Krystal King, at the Biloxi Beach Arcade. They “hung out” at the arcade until around 9:30-at which time they decided to stroll down to the beach and drink a six-pack of beer. Hours passed; midnight arrived; and the beer ran out. Krystal asked Willie to drive her to a house, unfamiliar to him, located on Burton Avenue in Gulfport. Gerald “Jerry” Holland owned this house. Jerry Holland had not lived in Gulfport all his life; he grew up in his birthplace, Los Angeles, with his mom, dad, two younger brothers, and a younger sister. His dad worked various jobs-as an electrician, truck mechanic, and other positions involving general maintenance. His mom was a homemaker. During the latter half of his teen-aged years, Holland moved with his family to Memphis where he completed his high-school education and received a “certificate of credits.” He left home at the age of twenty-one, and survived by working odd jobs. Holland explained: “As I got older, I worked selling shoes, became a dental technician, and got into the electrical trade and stayed in it most of the time.” He accumulated over twenty years' experience as an electrician-with some vocational training in this field. He “lived and worked in different places,” married and divorced twice, fathered five children, and ran afoul of the law. His criminal record includes convictions for burglary, auto theft, and rape of a child. He received a four-year term in a Texas prison for the rape; however, he served only one year before being paroled in 1976. He moved to Gulfport in 1981. Five years later, his and Krystal's path crossed. By that time, in June or July 1986, Holland's second wife had left him and taken their only child with her. Holland was doing “contract work” on and off, and he had secured a roommate, 21-year-old Jerry Douglas, who introduced him to Krystal. On the night when Boyer drove Krystal to Burton Avenue, Holland had been drinking. This was not out of character for Holland. He had, as of August 1, become a drinker of at least a “six-pack” of beer a day, which he attributed to his “despondence” over his then-pending divorce. Boyer remembered seeing Holland have "one beer the whole time he was there,” and he “did not appear to be intoxicated or drunk.” Boyer himself “had a little bit of tequila and a beer,” and Krystal abstained completely. Meanwhile, Douglas and 19-year-old Carter Fugate, who had only recently moved in, slept soundly in their bedrooms; they had been in bed since 11:00 p.m. Boyer and Krystal's visit lasted for a couple hours, during which time they watched “David Letterman” and listened to Holland small-talk about his divorce and the “divorce papers” which he had just received in the mail. Around 2:30 a.m., Boyer decided to leave, and Krystal remained behind. That was the last time Boyer saw her alive. Later in the night, between 3:20 and 3:30 a.m., a “bump” awakened Douglas: DOUGLAS: I got up to go to the bathroom and to get a drink of water. I opened my bedroom door, the lights in the house was on, the front door standing wide open. I heard another noise outside the front door. I looked through the door and I saw him bent over a black object on the ground. I looked at him and asked him, “Jerry, what is going on?” And he looked back up at me and says, “Go back to bed, you don't want to know.” Douglas then went into the kitchen and peered out the window: “I saw him roll this object into the back of his pick up truck and it made a loud thud sound when it hit the bed of the truck.” Holland returned to the house and, once inside, Douglas noticed that “he had a wild look on his face, his eyes were very big and glassy looking, and he was shaking.” At that point, Holland confessed: “My God, I killed her, I killed her.” According to Douglas, Holland then explained that he and Krystal had had sex on the couch, after which she picked up his “razor-sharp” hunting knife located nearby and “started playing with it.” Holland and Krystal “winded up going into his bedroom and she continued to play with the knife.” Holland “took the knife from her and the next thing he knew it was in her chest.” “He had stabbed her.” Douglas noted that Holland changed his story a few minutes later: Holland told him that he and Krystal were “wrestling around on the bed and she rolled off the bed and she fell onto the knife.” Holland also told him that “he mutilated the body to cover up the stab wounds” and to “make it look like a sex fiend had done it.” And he explained that he had placed the body in his truck “to ... bury it and try and cover everything up.” Douglas, under duress, accompanied Holland to bury Krystal's body. Douglas later contacted the Gulfport Police Department and informed homicide detectives, including Wayne Payne and Glen Terrell, about the murder. Upon hearing Douglas' story, the detectives acquired arrest and search warrants. At approximately 11:20 a.m. on September 12, 1986, a Gulfport Police Department S.W.A.T. Unit executed the warrants; the Unit entered Holland's home, arrested Holland, and read him his Miranda rights. Detectives Payne and Terrell read Holland his rights three more times at the police station. Holland decided to waive them and confess. HOLLAND: We had ... I think we had sex. I was pretty much drunk.... I don't even know if we did it or not and she was sitting in my lap and ... she saw my goddamned hunting knife. She started playing with it and she said let's go to bed, I'm sleepy. I said are you going to sleep on the couch or do you want to sleep with me? She says I'll sleep with you, so we went to the bedroom and she ... still had that goddamned knife in her hand. She was messing around with it like Zorro and all that bullshit. Typical kid at that point, I mean. .... I was dodging it and I grabbed her wrist and I was going to take it away from her before one of us got hurt with it and then I bumped into her chest and she says I'm dead. Then things got kind of black there for a minute. After confessing, Holland accompanied detectives to the burial site; they exhumed the body. An autopsy conducted by Dr. Paul McGarry revealed that Krystal had been brutally battered. McGarry described her injuries and their sequence. The first injuries were of the face, over the sides of the face, over the center of the face, the lips, over the nose, the eyes, they were more swollen, they were the most advanced. About the same time frame, next in line, the injuries of the arms, forearms, wrists, knees, shins. In that same time pattern, the injuries to the genital region, the stretching and scraping and tearing of the vagina and rectal tissues. These are produced by forceful penetration of the vagina and rectum by a structure that is able to distend and stretch and tear in a symmetrical pattern like a male sex organ. Next is the stab wound of the chest which went through the heart and through the aorta. Next after that is the ligature around the neck, the tying of the shirt tightly around the neck catching the hair in the shirt. Next is the blow to the back of the head which caught the hair that was in the ligature in that position and the last injury, a pair of underpants was stuffed down the throat, down as far as the voice box. McGarry stated that Krystal probably remained conscious during the entire ordeal until, finally, “she died of asphyxiation because of the ligature placed around her neck which closed off her airway, and the stuffing of clothing down her throat that obstructed her windpipe.” She probably did not die from the stab wound; indeed, she could have lived “as long as several hours” after being stabbed had she not been strangled. The stab wound did, however, contribute to her death. The mutilation of her genital area occurred post-mortem. On November 17, 1986, a grand jury returned an indictment against Holland for killing Krystal with “malice aforethought” while “engaged in the commission of the crime and felony of rape.” The Grand Jury later re-indicted him for the same crime but as an habitual offender.On November 30, 1987-after numerous hearings on pre-trial motions-Judge Kosta N. Vlahos held trial at the Adams County Circuit Court. Twelve days later, the trial concluded. The jury found Holland guilty as charged and sentenced him to death. Almost 20 years later, Holland received a second sentencing trial because the first jury had decided too quickly on his sentence. The outcome was the same in the second trial.

 

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
May 24, 2010	Arkansas	Lorraine Barrett, 32 Mary Phillips, 34	Jack Jones, Jr.	stayed
On June 1, 1991, witnesses saw a tourist on vacation from Pennsylvania, 32-year-old Lorraine Barrett, talking with a man at the Elbo Room on Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida. They both spoke to the bartender and a singer at the bar, then left together around 1:30 pm. They spent time at the bar at Lorraine's hotel, the Days Inn on Seabreeze Boulevard. Another witness saw Lorraine and the man board an elevator at the hotel. Around noon the next day, a hotel maid found Lorraine's nude body lying face down in the bed. Barrett was strangled to death, and there was evidence that she had also been sexually assaulted. In 2005, DNA evidence discovered her murderer: Jack Harold Jones, by then on death row in Arkansas for a 1995 murder. On the afternoon of June 6, 1995, seventeen-year-old Darla Phillips dropped her eleven-year-old sister Lacy off at Automated Tax and Accounting Service in Bald Knob, Arkansas where their mother, thirty-four-year old Mary Phillips, worked as a bookkeeper. Mary was planning to take her daughter to a 3:00 p.m. dentist appointment. Darla and her fifteen-year-old brother Jessie were expecting their mother and little sister to return to their home in Bradford around 4:30 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. They never arrived. A black-haired male entered the business before Lacy and her mother could leave for the dentist's office. According to Lacy's testimony at trial, the man had a teardrop tattoo on his face and more tattoos on his arm. The man had come into the business earlier that day to borrow some books. When he returned, he complained that he had been given the wrong book. He then told Lacy and her mother that he was "sorry," but that he was "going to have to rob" them. He ordered Mary to lay down on her stomach, and then made Lacy lay down on top of her mother. After retrieving the cash out of the register, he took them into a small break room. The man took Lacy into a bathroom off of the break room, tied her to a chair, then left. When he returned, Lacy, now crying, asked the man not to hurt her mother, to which he replied, "I'm not. I'm going to hurt you." He began to choke Lacy until she passed out. After Lacy lost consciousness, Jones struck her at least eight times in the head with the barrel of a BB gun, causing severe lacerations and multiple skull fractures, with fragments of bone that were driven down into Lacy's brain. When Lacy woke up, she saw blood and began to vomit. She went back to sleep and awakened later when police, seeing her bloodied body and thinking she was dead, were taking photographs of her. Police found Mary's body nude from the waist down. A cord from a nearby coffee pot was wrapped around her neck and wire was tied around her hands, which were positioned behind her back. Bruises on her arms and back indicated that she had struggled with her attacker prior to her death. According to autopsy results, Mary died from strangulation and blunt-force head injuries. Rectal swabs indicated that she had been anally raped before she was killed. Based on Lacy's description of the assailant, Arkansas State Police Investigator Jerry Brogdon went to Jack Harold Jones Jr.'s residence and asked him if he would accompany him to the White County Sheriff's Office. Once there, Jones was read his Miranda rights and signed a waiver-of-rights form. He admitted that he had committed the crimes because he wanted to get revenge against the police. He reasoned that his wife had been raped, and that the police had done nothing about it. The jury took only 30 minutes to return a guilty verdict. After a clemency hearing for Jones in 2007, Mary's daughter Lacy said it was time for Jack Jones' execution.  "Our family needs this.  We have been through a lot." Jones said he was "very sorry" but Lacy said, "It's too late." Her sister Darla said, "It doesn't matter. If it makes him feel better that's fine, but that's no big deal to us."

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