Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has asked Governor Asa Hutchinson to set execution dates for eight death row inmates who have exhausted their appeals. By now, hopefully, everyone knows how I feel about crime victims, their rights, their families, and certainly, the death penalty in these capital cases, but I wanted to write a blog post to let my constituents and the citizens of Arkansas know what these eight death row inmates have done to land them in Arkansas' Supermax prison.
When I read the facts of each of these cases I knew that these men were on death row for several reasons. First, they put themselves there. In life we are all faced with choices. These men deliberately took the lives of their victims in a brutal, heinous manner. They made the choice to do what they did and with choices there are consequences. Second, they have hurt a lot of people and when I say that I do not say it lightly, when a loved one is murdered it is as though your heart is ripped straight out of your chest, no easy way to say it. Third, a jury convicted these men of capital murder with a punishment of death...some over two decades ago. Who are we as a society to say what these juries have recommended is null and void because some bleeding heart feels differently?
Anyway, I will let you read the crimes and read the names of the victims and come to your own conclusion. As for me, I will always side with the innocent and never with the monsters who brutally wreak havoc on our society.
VICTIM: -Stacy Errickson-
Marcel Williams: On November 20, 1994, Stacy Errickson, the victim, on her way to work, stopped at the Jacksonville Shellstop for gas. The time was approximately 6:45 a.m. Williams approached Errickson's vehicle, drew a firearm, and forced her to move from the driver's seat to the passenger's side. Williams then drove Errickson's car away from the convenience store. Williams then took Errickson to several automated teller machines and coerced her to attempt withdrawals. A total of eighteen transactions yielded the sum of $350. The last transaction occurred at 7:37 a.m. These transactions were recorded by security cameras at several banking facilities. Stacy Errickson did not make it to work that day, nordid she pickup her child from the babysitter at the end of the day.Police arrested Williams on an outstanding warrant on November 29, 1994, and questioned him based on physical evidence linking him to two other assaults on women. During the course of an intensive interrogation lasting some thirteen hours, Williams admitted having abducted Errickson from the convenience store and robbing her through ATM withdrawals. However, he denied any sexual assault and assured the officers that to the best of his knowledge Errickson was alive. Appellant attempted to implicate others as accomplices asserting that they were the ones responsible for physically harming her. Based upon information Williams supplied, the police recovered a sheet matching Williams description as one he used in connection with the abduction and also recovered a gold ring which Williams identified. On December 5, 1994, police discovered Stacy Errickson's body buried in a shallow grave. Other evidence adduced at trial indicated that witnesses Tammy Victoria and Tammy Keenahan identified Williams as a man they had seen on the morning of November 20, 1994, at the Shellstop. They also testified that after they left the station he followed them in a car and attempted to stop them until they sought refuge at the air force base. Williams subsequently returned to the Shellstop and abducted Stacy Errickson.
Kenneth Williams: Williams received a death sentence for the October 3, 1999 slaying of 57-year-old Cecil Boren after Williams broke out of the Cummins Unit at Varner. He had been serving a sentence of life without parole in the slaying of University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff cheerleader Dominique "Nikki" Hurd. Williams was sentenced to death on August 30, 2000.
Stacey Johnson: 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
Heath’s two children from the home, Ashley Heath, then six years old, told
Heath’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 Heath that he had just been released from jail,
and said that the man was mad at Heath 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. Carol Heath had been beaten, strangled, and had her throat slit in front of her two young children, Ashley, age six, and Jonathan, age two.
VICTIM: -Mary Phillips- no image available
Jack Jones: Convicted
and sentenced to death for raping and murdering a bookkeeper and beating her
11-year-old daughter. Jones was convicted in 1996 of capital murder, rape and
criminal attempt to commit murder in the killing of Mary Phillips and the
beating of her daughter, Lacy. On June 6th, 1995, 34-year-old Mary Phillips and
her daughter, Lacy, were at a Bald Knob accounting office when Jones entered
the office and robbed them. Lacy lost consciousness and was left for dead. When
she awoke, police were taking photographs of her. Mary Phillips was found nude
from the waist down with a cord from a nearby coffee pot wrapped around her
neck. She also had been hit about the head and had bruises on her arms and
back.
VICTIM: - Rebecca Doss- no image available
Bruce Ward: Convicted
in 1990 of the 1989 capital murder of eighteen-year-old Rebecca Doss and
sentenced to death by lethal injection. Doss was a clerk at a Jackpot Inc.
convenience store working the overnight shift. Ward was arrested when a police
officer had stopped because the store was open but he could not see a clerk
inside. He stopped Ward after seeing him walking away from the restrooms toward
a motorcycle and arrested him after finding the body. Raped and strangled.
VICTIM:- Jane Daniels- no image available
Don William Davis: Committing a series of
burglaries, Don William Davis broke into the Rogers home of Jane Martha Daniel,
62, on Oct. 12, 1990. Using a .44 caliber Magnum revolver he had stolen
earlier, he shot her once in the head in a storeroom in her house. Richard Daniel found his wife
dead in the basement when he returned home that night from a business trip.
Davis was arrested in New Mexico after his roommates went to the police with
their suspicions about his involvement. Most of the stolen objects were
recovered and traced back to Davis.
VICTIMS: -Cecil Boren- no image available
-Dominique Hurd-
Kenneth Williams: Williams received a death sentence for the October 3, 1999 slaying of 57-year-old Cecil Boren after Williams broke out of the Cummins Unit at Varner. He had been serving a sentence of life without parole in the slaying of University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff cheerleader Dominique "Nikki" Hurd. Williams was sentenced to death on August 30, 2000.
VICTIM: -Scott Stobaugh-
Terrick Nooner: At approximately 1:30 am on March 16, 1993, Scott Stobaugh, a college student, was washing clothes at the Funwash Laundromat on West Markham street in Little Rock. An assailant, in an apparent robbery attempt, shot Stobaugh seven times in the back at close range with a .22-caliber pistol, causing his death. A surveillance camera captured a portion of the incident on videotape. The videotape showed the assailant and Stobaugh as Stobaugh raised his hands. Nooner took $20 and a checkbook.Two witnesses identified the person on the Laundromat video as Terrick Terrell Nooner, by clothing and appearance. Other testimony and ballistics evidence tied Nooner to the murder weapon. A Pulaski County Circuit Court jury convicted Nooner of capital murder.
VICTIM: -John Melbourne- no image available
Jason McGehee: Convicted by a Boone County jury on January 9, 1998, of capital murder and kidnapping in the August 1996 death of John Melbourne, Jr., 15. McGehee, then 21, was the leader of a group of six friends — teens and young adults — who lived together in a house in Harrison and survived by cashing stolen and forged checks. On August 19, 1996, McGehee sent Melbourne, the youngest of the group, into Harrison to cash a stolen check. The boy attracted the suspicion of a store manager who alerted police, who questioned Melbourne and released him into his father’s custody after he told the officers about stolen property at the house. The other residents, angry that Melbourne had “snitched,” later lured him to the house, where they beat him. The group then bound his hands and took him to an abandoned house in Omaha, where they beat him again, cut him and burned him. Finally, McGehee and two others took turns strangling him until he died.
VICTIM: - Carol Jean Heath-
Stacey Johnson: 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
Heath’s two children from the home, Ashley Heath, then six years old, told
Heath’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 Heath that he had just been released from jail,
and said that the man was mad at Heath 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. Carol Heath had been beaten, strangled, and had her throat slit in front of her two young children, Ashley, age six, and Jonathan, age two.
Yeah, I know, disgusting. I feel very, very empathetic for these families. I hope they find peace one day. I really do.
