James Kelly Moss, 1962
James Kelly Moss was a career criminal who served his first prison term in 1933, at age 19, having been convicted of trying to steal bags of coffee and car tires from an L&N Railroad boxcar. Some eight months later, he and two other inmates were unloading a truck outside the prison walls at Eddyville when they overpowered their guard and ran. They were quickly recaptured.
A Pattern of Crime
Between 1950 and 1953, Moss was arrested ten more times. Circuit Judge Faust Simpson ordered him to leave Henderson County in January 1954 after he was involved in a disturbance at his mother’s house and threatened police with a knife.
Later in 1954, he was charged with a robbery in Webster County, for which he was sent to prison. He was released on September 22, 1957.
The Murder of Charles Abbott
Six weeks later, Moss committed the murder that would send him to the electric chair. On November 6, 1957, he turned up in a taxi—drunk—at the home of his 74-year-old stepfather, Charles Abbott, at about 8:30 p.m. Moss hammered on the door and demanded the 35-cent taxi fare from Abbott.
At some point, Moss got into the house, where he beat the old man—who, at just 110 pounds, was half his size. The injuries were so horrendous that Abbott was barely recognizable. His body was discovered by police around 10 p.m., when his wife, Edna, found the door locked on her return from church.
Moss was the only suspect and was arrested the next day. His first words were, “How is the old man?” He didn’t know that Abbott was dead until police told him. He replied, “We had a little fight, but I certainly didn’t intend to kill him.”
“This is the worst thing I have ever had happen to me. This means a long term for me.”
Trial and Execution
Moss pleaded not guilty at his trial in May of 1958 but was convicted. His death sentence wasn’t handed down until January 6, 1961, after which he fought a strenuous battle for commutation. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down three appeals from him. He even took the state to court for using tear gas to get him out of his cell at Eddyville—on the tenuous grounds that in doing so they had tried to execute him already.
All his legal manoeuvres failed, and just after midnight on March 2, 1962, James Kelly Moss went to the electric chair. His “restless spirit” was “stilled,” according to The Gleaner newspaper.
“I wasn’t guilty of the crime and you know it,” he told the prison warden shortly before his execution. His body was claimed by his mother and buried in Crayne Cemetery in Crittenden County.
Legacy and Context
According to contemporary police accounts, Kelly Moss was considered manageable when sober but could rapidly become violent when he had been drinking.
The execution didn’t make big news at the time, even though it was the first since November 30, 1956, when Robert Sheckles was put to death for rape, Charles Deberry for robbery/murder, and James Bowman for a rape/murder—all on the same night.
There would be no further executions in Kentucky after this until Harold McQueen was put to death in 1997.
Harold McQueen, Jr.
The Crime
22-year-old Rebecca O’Hearn worked at the Minit Mart on Big Hill Avenue in Richmond, Madison County. Around 11:30 p.m. on the evening of January 17, 1981, she was working alone when two men entered the store. One of them ordered Rebecca at gunpoint to hand over the contents of the cash register, which she did. He then shot her twice with a .22-caliber pistol—the first shot at point-blank range to the face and the second to the back of the head—having first made the injured girl kneel down behind the counter.
27-year-old Harold McQueen and his girlfriend, Linda Rose, were arrested on unrelated theft charges. A search of their trailer revealed the murder weapon, along with cash and food stamps from the Minit Mart. McQueen’s half-brother, William Burnell, was McQueen’s accomplice in the robbery and was also arrested.
On the day of the murder, the three had been drinking, smoking marijuana, and taking pills.
The Trial
McQueen and Burnell were tried before Judge James Chenault in March 1981 at the Madison Circuit Court in Richmond. Burnell had a paid lawyer, but McQueen relied on public defender Jerome Fish, who received only $1,000 for his services. Both men tried to blame each other, while Linda Rose testified against McQueen.
According to her, Burnell and McQueen left the store after the robbery—Burnell carrying a bag with the store’s surveillance camera, which was later thrown into a pond, and McQueen carrying three small bags. Rose testified that McQueen told her he shot O’Hearn twice and said, “I know the bitch is dead.”
The jury convicted both men, recommending the death penalty for McQueen and 28 years in prison for Burnell. The judge concurred with these recommendations. (Burnell was paroled in 1988.)
Appeals and Legal Battles
As usual in modern capital cases, years of appeals and motions for retrials followed. An execution date of July 13, 1984, was originally set after the Kentucky Supreme Court denied McQueen a retrial. However, due to further appeals by the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy, this date was scrapped.
In the run-up to this date, the warden of Kentucky State Penitentiary even advertised in local newspapers for an executioner. It is not known how many responses he received.
In 1986, after the U.S. Supreme Court for a second time refused to hear McQueen’s case, Governor Martha Layne Collins signed a death warrant, setting June 26 as the new execution date. McQueen’s attorney, Randy Wheeler, requested a stay to pursue further appeals, which was granted.
By June 24, 1997, there were no fewer than five lawsuits pending, including one demanding a clemency hearing from Governor Paul Patton. Another motion before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Russell complained of the cruelty of electrocution. A further motion requested McQueen be resentenced to life in prison due to the inadequacy of his original defense counsel.
Efforts continued by the Department of Public Advocacy right up to the end, attempting to show a human face of McQueen, who was housed in a small solitary cell in Cellblock 6 at Eddyville. Margaret Case told reporters that McQueen was a totally different person than the man he had been in 1980.
Final Decision and Execution
Ultimately, all this activity on behalf of McQueen proved fruitless. Governor Paul Patton signed his death warrant, refusing to bow to pressure from Kentucky’s Catholic Bishops and other anti-death penalty groups.
Patton issued a statement saying, “I will not, through the power of clemency, substitute my judgment for that of the General Assembly, the courts, and the juries of the Commonwealth.” The execution was set for just after midnight on Tuesday, July 1, 1997.
In the run-up to the execution, the 86-year-old electric chair was refurbished at a cost of $32,000 to ensure it would function correctly—which it did.
McQueen, who had become a devout Catholic on death row, said in a televised interview that entering the death chamber would be “kind of like the gateway to heaven.”
“I’m not scared of death because I can go to the Lord’s house, and that’s going to be great. It will be a lot better than it is here,” he told a reporter from WCPO-TV on the Sunday prior to execution.
The Day of Execution
On the day of execution, some 100 officers from the National Guard, police, and state troopers were stationed around Eddyville, and the prison was placed on lockdown from 6 a.m. About 225 people, mostly anti-death penalty protesters, gathered on a nearby firing range. TV station trucks were on hand to cover the scene.
Shortly after 9 p.m., McQueen’s head and right calf were shaved. He took a shower and changed into a clean red jumpsuit with the right leg cut off up to the knee to enable the leg electrode to be attached.
The Rev. Maurice Tiell, an Eddyville priest, administered the last rites to McQueen, who was three weeks away from his 45th birthday. He spent his final moments with his spiritual advisor, Paul Stevens, and his attorney. He asked for and was given two cheesecakes for his last meal.
A number of prayer vigils were held by opponents of capital punishment in Eddyville before the execution. In his final hours, McQueen was visited by his mother, Helen Burnell, and his girlfriend, Doris Linville, and made farewell telephone calls to other relatives and friends, according to prison officials.
Final Moments and Death
Just after midnight, he was led into the death chamber and strapped into the chair. In his final statement, he told witnesses, “I want to apologise one more time to the O’Hearn family.”
“I want to apologise to my own family, and I want to say thank you to those who sent me cards, letters, and prayers, and hope that they continue to oppose the death penalty.”
At 12:07 a.m., he received a jolt of 2,100 volts, 7.5 amps for 15 seconds, followed by 250 volts, 1 amp for 105 seconds. McQueen strained against the leather straps, and smoke was seen coming from the electrode on his right ankle.
At 12:11 a.m., a physician’s assistant checked McQueen’s neck for a pulse, then the prison doctor repeated the procedure. At 12:15 a.m., McQueen was pronounced dead.
Five minutes later, Michael Bradley, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, announced that “The sentence of death has been carried out on Harold McQueen.”
The body was removed from the prison in a hearse soon afterward, as shown on television news. It was taken for postmortem by the state’s chief medical examiner, Dr. David Jones, prior to being transported to his hometown of Berea for burial.
McQueen’s execution—the first of three to date since the return of the death penalty in Kentucky—was also the only one that was non-consensual.
LaFonda Fay Foster and Tina Hickey Powell
An extraordinary killing spree took place in Lexington when 27-year-old Tina Hickey Powell and 22-year-old LaFonda Fay Foster murdered five people on April 23, 1986. Their victims were Carlos Kearns, 71, a retired Air Force veteran; his wife, Virginia, 45; Trudy Harrell, 59; Theodore Sweet, 53; and Roger Keene, 47.
The Crime
The two women had been drinking and were high on cocaine when they went to the home of their friends, the Kearns, to try and get more money to buy drugs. Carlos Kearns wrote a check and had to go out to get it cashed. All the victims went with them, with LaFonda driving the Kearns’ car.
Trudy Harrell was the first to be found, around 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening in the parking lot of Berke Plaza shopping center. She had several stab wounds and her chest was crushed, having been run over by a car. Virginia Kearns’ body was found in an alley behind some warehouses about 11:15 p.m. She had been stabbed, shot in the back of the head, and also run over. The three male victims were found in a field off Mount Tabor Road; they had gunshot wounds, stab wounds, their throats had been cut, and they too were run over with the car, which was afterwards set on fire with Roger Keene’s body underneath it.
Arrest and Charges
Powell and Foster were arrested when they tried to get a cab at Humana Hospital on Richmond Road. A nurse saw them intoxicated and with blood on them and reported this to police Captain John Potts, who was at the hospital and arrested them when they became belligerent. Initially, they were charged only with public intoxication. The gun was discovered later, and the women were further charged with the murder of Carlos Kearns, appearing in court on April 25 before Judge Lewis Paisley. Both pleaded not guilty. Powell was represented by attorney John Larson, and the judge appointed a public defender for Foster. Both were detained for trial at the Fayette County Detention Center, and their booking was videotaped. It took the police some time to assemble sufficient evidence to bring the other murder charges.
The Trial
Their trial took place in Lexington, despite motions by the defense for a change of venue, before Judge James Keller in February and March of 1987. The lesbian relationship between the two women came out during the proceedings, and Powell’s defense attempted to show that she had acted under Foster’s control, out of fear. Judge Keller instructed the jury that they could only find the women guilty of the five murders or not guilty; they could not find them guilty of manslaughter.
Both were convicted of all five murders on March 28, 1987, and the prosecution asked the jury for the death penalty.
Sentencing and Appeals
At the sentencing hearing, Foster’s defender cited abuse as a child and alcohol and drug addiction as mitigating factors, and also tried to claim that they were both too intoxicated to form an intention of killing anyone. This was rebutted by the video of their booking into jail.
After 21 hours of deliberation, the jury decided that Foster should be given the death penalty and that Powell should be sentenced to life in prison without parole for 25 years. Foster’s attorney, Kevin McNally, said he was outraged by the death sentence, claiming that “this woman has been the victim of violence her whole life.”
In 1988, Foster was transferred to a prison in Oklahoma under an interstate agreement. She successfully appealed in 1989 on the basis that she couldn’t have proper contact with her defense team preparing her appeals against the death sentence and was returned to Kentucky. She also appealed for and was granted a new sentencing hearing in December 1991. This overturned her death sentence and substituted a prison term of 99 years, 99 months, and 99 days (life without parole). Powell signed an affidavit stating that she lied at the original trial about participating in the murders out of fear of Foster.
Tina Powell was denied parole in 2011 and told she would have to serve at least ten more years. Foster is serving her sentence at the Western Kentucky Correctional Complex in Fredonia, Lyon County. Powell is at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women at Pewee Valley in Shelby County. A film entitled 100% Proof was made about this case.
Kevin Miguel Standford
On the evening of January 7, 1981, Kevin Standford, then aged 17 years and four months (born August 23, 1963), with two accomplices—David Buchanan (aged 16) and Troy Johnson (aged 15)—robbed the Checker gasoline station on 4501 Cane Run Road, Louisville, in Jefferson County. The clerk at the station was 20-year-old Baerbel Poore, a mother of an infant, who was just about to finish for the night and was reading the pumps when Stanford approached her with a gun. Together with Buchanan, he forced her inside the convenience store. Johnson remained in the getaway car.
While Buchanan attempted to open the store’s safe, Stanford took Poore to an interior restroom where he raped her. When Buchanan was unable to open the safe, he joined Stanford in the restroom. Both men then took turns raping and sodomizing Poore. Apparently concerned that Poore might recognize them, Stanford drove her in her own car to an isolated area. Once there, Stanford shot her twice in the head at close range. They returned to the gas station, where they took two gallons of gas, $140, and 30 cartons of cigarettes.
Trial and Sentencing
The Kentucky Juvenile Court determined that Stanford should be tried as an adult because of the seriousness of his offenses and his long history of past delinquency. He was convicted and sentenced to death. After appeals, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence.
Stanford had laughed and boasted about his crimes to accomplices, other inmates, and corrections officers. He allegedly told an officer, “I had to shoot her. The bitch lives next door to me, and she would recognize me.” His attorney, Margaret O’Donnell, denied that he had ever said these things.
After a two-week trial, a Jefferson Circuit Court jury convicted Stanford of intentional murder and other crimes on August 12, 1982. Circuit Court Judge Charles Leibson sentenced Stanford to death in the electric chair on Friday, September 24, 1982. Buchanan received life for his crimes. He was refused parole in 2007 and currently must serve out his sentence. Johnson testified for the prosecution and received nine months in juvenile detention.
The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence on April 30, 1987 (Stanford v. Commonwealth, 734 S.W.2d 781).
Subsequent Developments and Commutation
On June 26, 1989, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for 16- and 17-year-old murderers did not breach the Constitution.
It was claimed at Stanford’s clemency hearing in 2002 that at age five, Stanford had been sexually abused by a babysitter and continued to be sexually abused by older boys in the neighborhood. However, his attorney said Stanford accepted full responsibility for the crimes and the hurt to Baerbel Poore’s family.
The Catholic Conference of Kentucky (Roman Catholic bishops) called on Governor Paul Patton in October 2002 to commute Stanford’s death sentence. According to Vincent E. Senior, CCK’s Executive Director, “Kentucky’s bishops are offering their support to Governor Patton if he elects to use his constitutional power to stop the execution of Kevin Stanford. Our Governor faces a gravely historic opportunity to prevent this execution of a juvenile offender and he has our support.” The European Union also urged commutation.
On December 8, 2003, Governor Paul Patton announced, prior to leaving office, that he had commuted Stanford’s sentence to life in prison. This was the only time Patton commuted a death sentence since taking office, and in his announcement, he stated that the justice system “perpetuated an injustice” in Stanford’s case.
Needless to say, Baerbel Poore’s family was appalled by this decision. Her sister, Mona Mills, told reporters that she was “shocked and sick to her stomach.”
Kentucky Attorney General Ben Chandler had urged Patton to sign the death warrant, stating, “We have consistently opposed clemency in this case. We filed a response with the Governor’s office in November opposing a request for clemency, and our position has not changed.”
Stanford currently remains incarcerated at the Kentucky State Penitentiary at Eddyville.
1988: Introduction of Lethal Injection in Kentucky
From March 1998, Kentucky introduced lethal injection as the method of execution for all persons sentenced to death thereafter. Persons condemned before this date were allowed to choose either method.
Eddie Lee Harper
Kentucky’s first execution by lethal injection took place on May 25, 1999, when Eddie Lee Harper was put to death for the shooting murder of his adoptive parents, Alice and Edward Lee Harper Sr., as they slept at their home in Valley Station, Jefferson County, on February 19, 1982.
Harper was evaluated by a psychiatrist before trial and found competent to stand trial.
At 50 years old, Harper had spent 16 years on death row and decided he wanted to die, insisting on giving up his appeals.
On May 19, 1999, Harper was found competent to waive further appeals by U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley after a two-day hearing. Harper told the judge, “I just don’t want to grow old and die in prison, I would rather leave this world with a little dignity.” Attorneys Randall Wheeler and Susan Martin asked the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the execution. The motion argued that a lower-court judge erred when it found Harper mentally competent. This was denied.
Harper’s execution commenced at Eddyville at 8:00 p.m. (EST) on the Tuesday evening, amid tight security around the prison. In a final statement, Harper expressed remorse for what he called his “terrible crime.” Strapped to the gurney, in the brief statement he apologized to his “mom’s side of the family.” He then told his son, Ben Sheehan, “I’ll always be with you in spirit. I’ll be on the other side waiting for you. I’ll be waiting for you, boy. That’s all I have to say.”
The execution, Kentucky’s first by injection, was delayed because Department of Corrections employees had trouble inserting an intravenous needle into Harper’s left arm, according to spokeswoman Carol Czirr. At 8:10 p.m., the team successfully found a vein just above Harper’s left hand.
Warden Philip Parker ordered the execution to proceed at 8:16 p.m. A minute later, Harper’s toes wiggled, he licked his lips, blinked his eyes, and let out a sigh or gasp. Deputy Warden William Henderson immediately turned the microphone off. By 8:18, Harper’s face had turned slightly purple and became puffy. A prison doctor pronounced Harper dead at 8:28 p.m.
His body was cremated and buried in the prison graveyard.
Gregory Lee Wilson
Gregory Wilson (born in Ohio in November 1956) was sentenced to death by electrocution in Kenton County on October 31, 1988, for kidnapping and murdering Deborah Pooley on May 29, 1987.
The Perpetrators and Their Victim
36-year-old Deborah Pooley worked as assistant manager at a river-front restaurant in Newport, Kenton County. On the Friday night around 11:45 p.m., Deborah left her best friend’s house to go home. She parked outside her apartment, where she was abducted.
She was forced into the back seat of her car and was driven by Wilson’s accomplice, Brenda Humphrey, to the flood wall in Covington. Here, Wilson took Deborah out of the car and made her lie down with her eyes closed while Humphrey went to get gas.
When she returned, Wilson bundled Deborah back into the car’s back seat, where he made her unbutton her blouse while Humphrey drove. He tied her hands and then raped her. When he had finished, he told Deborah that he was going to kill her because “You have seen us. You know who we are, and you have to die.” Wilson then strangled her and disposed of her body in a thicket in Hendricks County, Indiana.
The pair made off in Deborah’s car, taking the contents of her purse including her credit card. They booked into a hotel in Crawfordsville, Indiana around 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, where two maids were later able to identify them. Later, they used Deborah’s credit card in Danville, Illinois, to purchase various items including shoes, clothes, necklaces, two new watches, and more gas.
On Sunday, May 31, Wilson and Humphrey went to the home of Humphrey’s best friend, Beverly Finkenstead. Beverly noticed that they both had new jewelry and clothes.
The following Sunday, Humphrey confided the details of the crimes to Beverly, who reported them to the police on June 15—coincidentally the same day that Deborah’s body was discovered. It was only possible to identify the corpse through dental records. The cause of death could not be established due to the advanced state of decomposition, but it was estimated by a forensic entomologist that, given the extent of maggot development, death had occurred some 15–16 days earlier.
Wilson and Humphrey were duly arrested and charged with murder and other offences.
Trial and Evidence
In jail, Wilson confided the details of the crimes to his cellmate, Willis Maloney, who later recounted them at Wilson’s trial. Wilson admitted the rape to Maloney, something that had not previously been realized as Deborah’s body was so decomposed, although semen had been found on the back seat of her car, together with pubic hairs from Wilson and head hairs that matched Humphrey’s.
When the hotel room in Crawfordsville was searched, various items of clothing with K-Mart tags were found that matched items purchased on Deborah’s credit card.
In February 1988, Kenton County Circuit Court Judge Raymond Lape Jr. ordered that Wilson undergo an examination at the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center in LaGrange to determine whether or not he was competent to stand trial and if he was sane when he murdered Pooley.
Wilson finally came to trial in September 1988 before Judge Raymond Lape Jr. Wilson largely represented himself in court with assistance from semi-retired Newport lawyer William Hagedorn.
At the end of the guilt phase of the trial, Wilson presented his own closing argument, telling the jury he was not guilty, he “never met nor knew the victim,” and that Humphrey told her sister that she killed Deborah Pooley.
The jury returned guilty verdicts against both defendants and recommended death for Wilson at the penalty phase. He was additionally sentenced to consecutive prison terms of 20, 20, and 10 years respectively for first-degree rape, first-degree robbery, and criminal conspiracy to commit robbery. He previously served a prison sentence in Ohio on two counts of rape.
Humphrey was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years before parole.
Subsequent Legal Actions and Appeals
Wilson filed a lawsuit in 2007 challenging the method, rather than the constitutionality, of Kentucky’s execution procedure. It was claimed that Valium, given as a sedative, interfered with the effectiveness of sodium thiopental that renders an inmate unconscious.
Wilson also claimed that he was unable to make an intelligent choice between lethal injection and electrocution because the state does not provide enough information about its protocol for each method. He asked U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell to force the state to allow inmates access to the secret protocols for electrocution and lethal injection.
In another lawsuit in 2007, Wilson’s claim that he had been forced to represent himself at his trial was rejected by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Execution Stay and Advocacy
After Governor Steve Beshear signed Wilson’s death warrant in August 2010, setting a date of September 15 for the execution, several religious leaders raised protests.
The Rev. Dr. Marian McClure Taylor, executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, testified in January in front of Kentucky’s Supreme Court regarding revisions in the protocol for executions: “God shows a remarkable unwillingness to give up on us, and does not give us permission to give up on each other. As long as society can be kept safe by some means other than taking a convicted person’s life, we should not take that life.”
Four Catholic bishops from Kentucky, as well as Pope Benedict XVI, asked the governor to commute Wilson’s death sentence. On behalf of the Pope, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville gave the governor a letter asking for commutation, citing legal problems in his trial.
On September 10, 2010, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd issued a stay for Wilson on the basis that if Wilson’s IQ was found to be below 70, he could not be executed. Additionally, Shepherd ruled that “the state’s protocol for carrying out an execution is inconsistent with state law and doesn’t provide a safeguard to prevent a mentally retarded or criminally insane inmate from being executed.”
Attorney General Jack Conway appealed that ruling, and the decision moved to the seven justices of the Kentucky Supreme Court.
As of May 2013, Wilson remains on death row at Eddyville.
Current Status of Brenda Humphrey
Brenda Humphrey is serving her sentence at Kentucky’s Women’s Correctional Institute in Pewee Valley but applied for parole in April 2012 (aged 58), something opposed by Deborah’s family. This was denied.
Further Mental Competency Hearings
In May 2012, the Kentucky Supreme Court ordered another hearing on Wilson’s mental competency. He had first raised the issue two years previously but was turned down by the Kenton County court without a hearing.
John Foote was on Wilson’s defense team at his original trial and disputes Wilson’s claim, saying, “In my opinion, in my dealings with him he was not mentally retarded at all. He was very focused, deliberate, engaging in conversations and of average intelligence.”
Foote says Wilson often acted as his own attorney and filed several motions on his own behalf. “They were as good as motions written by paralegals or attorneys—he wrote the motions, handwritten motions.”
Twenty-two years later, Wilson filed school documents claiming he had a 62 IQ as a 14-year-old and could only do first or second grade work.
Beoria Abraham Simmons
Beoria Simmons (born 5/17/1954) was a Jefferson County social worker in Louisville who decided that the city needed cleansing of women he suspected of being prostitutes. To this end, he abducted, raped, and shot three white women between 1981 and 1983.
His first victim was 15-year-old Robin Barnes on May 18, 1981, followed by 29-year-old Shannon House on March 25, 1982, and 39-year-old Nancy Bettman on March 11, 1983. Their bodies were found dumped in Iroquois Park in Louisville, with their undergarments torn and scattered, and their bodies showing bruising.
His fourth victim, a 16-year-old girl named K.D. Heaton, was abducted from a bus stop near Churchill Downs, forced into Simmons’ car and beaten before being taken to Iroquois Park. There, Simmons told her he was going to rape her. She stabbed him in the thigh with a pocket knife and managed to escape. She later identified Simmons and testified against him at his trial.
The police alerted local hospitals to inform them if someone came into the ER with such a wound. Fortunately, this worked, and Simmons was arrested on June 11, 1983. The pistol used in the three murders was recovered from Simmons’ car, and ballistic tests confirmed it as the murder weapon. Simmons gave a statement admitting he had sexual intercourse with the three women and killed each of them; the statement was tape recorded.
At trial, Simmons’ attorney, Daniel Taylor, attempted an insanity defense to counter the overwhelming evidence against his client. Simmons claimed he had sex with them as prostitutes and killed after fighting over their payments. The jury did not accept this version, and due to the evidence of rape—which is an aggravating factor—they recommended the death sentence on each murder charge and for three counts of kidnapping in 1985. Additionally, Simmons was sentenced to twenty years for attempted murder, ten years for attempted rape, and twenty years for the fourth kidnapping count. These convictions and sentences were affirmed on appeal in 1988.
There followed further appeals until March 2010, when Simmons struck a plea deal before Judge Mary Shaw to avoid execution. He accepted six life sentences without the possibility of parole. The basis of his case was that at the original trial, prosecutors made too many challenges to black jurors. Were he to be granted a new trial at this late stage, it would be impossible to be certain of the outcome, and he could even have walked free, as there might no longer be enough evidence to convict him. Two of the three evidence technicians on the case had died, and all police investigators had retired.
“We believe that continuing litigation would eventually result in the outcome that has been achieved today,” said Simmons’ attorney, public defender David Barron. As part of the agreement, Simmons will be allowed to stay in a single cell at Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville and may not be moved. Simmons agreed to drop all appeals.
Simmons apologized to the families of the three women he murdered: “I just want to say I’m sorry for all the grief and pain I’ve caused throughout the years,” he said. “You know, if I could undo it I’d undo it. But I can’t, so I pray to God he’d bless you all, you know, just bring some peace to your life.”
Kaye Barnes, the cousin of Robin Barnes, said she did not feel a life sentence for Simmons was the justice her cousin deserved. “We waited for him to die on death row and have lethal injection,” Barnes said. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Harry Rothgerber added, “Everybody is mad about the endless appeals that have taken place in this case, and we wanted to ensure Mr. Simmons would die in prison and not harm anybody again.”
Marco Allan Chapman
Marco Allan Chapman is presently the last person to be executed in Kentucky. He was put to death by lethal injection at Eddyville shortly after 8 p.m. EST on November 21, 2008, at his insistence.
The Crime
On the morning of August 23, 2002, the then 30-year-old Chapman stabbed and cut the throats of two children, 7-year-old Chelbi Sharon and 6-year-old Cody Sharon, in their home on Weldon Way in Warsaw, Gallatin County. He also attacked their 10-year-old sister, Courtney, who played dead and fortunately survived.
In addition, he attacked the children’s mother, 37-year-old Carolyn Marksberry, the city clerk of Warsaw. He tied her to her bed, raped her, and stabbed her repeatedly, leaving her for dead with a knife buried in her chest. Chapman robbed the home of some items and was caught the next day in West Virginia driving a 1992 Dodge Dakota taken from a home in Boone County where he had been staying.
Courtney was taken to Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati, and her mother to University Hospital there, where she underwent five hours of surgery to repair a collapsed lung and treat her other injuries. Both made good recoveries.
It is thought that the motive for the crime was that Carolyn Marksberry had counseled Chapman’s former girlfriend to end an abusive relationship with him.
Trial and Sentencing
Chapman pleaded guilty to all charges at his trial before Boone County Circuit Judge Tony Frohlich in early December 2004. He told the court, “I only wish the judge to sentence me to death so no one can feel responsible for another’s death, including mine.” He was formally sentenced to death on December 14, 2004, and transferred to death row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary at Eddyville.
The state Supreme Court unanimously upheld Chapman’s death sentence on August 23, 2007. He had filed an affidavit in May saying he wanted to be executed. In it, he wrote, “My rights are mine, and I am entitled to waive them just as is any other defendant.” His court-appointed attorneys, Donna Boyce and Randall Wheeler, argued that his wish to waive appeals showed he was not competent. But the court ruled that “our review of the record in this case … shows that Chapman’s plea was competently, knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily made.” Judge Frohlich also found no legal reason to deny Chapman’s request.
In early November, Franklin Senior Circuit Judge Roger Crittenden ruled that Chapman was competent and could dismiss his public defenders who were trying to stop his execution. Two motions to stop the execution, filed by the Department of Public Advocacy, were pending with the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Execution and Aftermath
On November 17, 2008, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear declined to halt Chapman’s execution, saying, “I have reviewed the facts of this case in detail and have given prayerful thought to it… I do not find any such strong extenuating circumstances in this case. Mr. Chapman has been found guilty of a vicious and almost indescribable crime.”
The previous day, he had met with representatives of the Kentucky Council of Churches and Catholic Conference of Kentucky, who urged him to commute Chapman’s sentence to life in prison without parole. Although the Governor appreciated their views, he stated, “I believe that capital punishment is appropriate in the case of particularly heinous crimes, absent some strong extenuating circumstances.”
There was a flurry of appeals, including one on the legitimacy of Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol. This was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court early on Friday evening, as it had been by the Kentucky Supreme Court the previous day.
Chapman’s last meal was reportedly a 32-ounce sirloin, 20 butterfly shrimp, tossed salad with ranch dressing, iced tea, and a banana cream.
Before being taken to the death chamber, corrections officials said Chapman’s mood was peaceful. He spent time writing letters to family members and preparing his final statement to be read to witnesses.
On Friday, November 21, 2008, just after 8 p.m. EST, Marco Allan Chapman was executed by lethal injection using the standard three drugs in the execution chamber at the Kentucky State Penitentiary. He was pronounced dead at 8:34 p.m.
Before his sentence was carried out, he turned to a two-way mirror of the room where Carolyn Marksberry was reportedly witnessing the execution and begged for forgiveness: “I pray daily but not just for me but for Carolyn and Courtney that even though they have the right to hate me, I just hope they don’t live with hate in their hearts.”
Carolyn Marksberry and her family issued a statement read to reporters after the execution: “I believe the tears shed today should be for the victims of this crime, not Marco Chapman. Perhaps now though, not only can our family and community start to heal but (also) Cody and Chelbi can rest in peace.”
Media witnesses said that about two minutes into the execution procedure, at about 8:22 p.m., they saw Chapman swallow a couple of times and his breathing become shallow. About a minute later, further rising motion from Chapman’s chest was noted. Around the same time, Warden Simpson reached over and closed Chapman’s eyes.
Chapman’s body was taken by hearse to the Lyon County Coroner’s Office for autopsy, followed by cremation.
In his final statement, which he gave to Warden Tom Simpson to read, Chapman said, “I don’t know why I did the thing that I did, and I know the hate of me over that night must be overwhelming, but Carolyn and Courtney you have to know that wasn’t who I was or am. I am not a monster even though I did a monstrously evil thing. That is why I give my life willingly as well as quickly in hopes that you know how truly sorry I am. I hurt and ache daily for the loss I’ve created in the Marksberrys’ family, but I hurt as well. I don’t know if I deserve heaven after what I did, but I pray with all my heart that I find some sort of peace and happiness after my last breath.”
After Simpson read the statement, the execution was confirmed by Lisa Lamb, spokesperson for the Kentucky Department of Corrections, who stated: “The execution of Marco Allan Chapman was carried out in accordance with the sentencing courts of Kentucky and the laws of the Commonwealth at 8:34 p.m.”
Death Row in Kentucky
As of May 2013, 32 men and 1 woman remain on death row in Kentucky. Four of the men have reached the end of the appeal process. A ruling on whether the state’s revised lethal injection protocol is acceptable is expected soon, which, if favorable, would allow executions to resume.
Also, see Kentucky Murders 1897-1936.
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