Post-Furman US execution #189
Washington State execution #1 since reinstatement
Modern judicial hanging #1 in the United States
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, the 5th of January, 1993, the State of Washington carried out the execution of 31-year-old Westley Allan Dodd at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Dodd had been sentenced to death following his guilty pleas to the aggravated murders of three young boys in Clark County in the autumn of 1989.
His execution was a major milestone in American capital history: it was the first execution conducted in Washington State since 1963, and the first legal hanging performed anywhere in the United States since Charles Rodman Campbell’s sentence was deferred (the last previous hanging in the nation having been that of Barton Kay Kirkham in Utah on the 7th of June, 1958). Dodd was an uncompromising “volunteer” who insisted upon being hanged rather than receiving lethal injection, deliberately choosing the rope so that he would experience the same form of strangulation he had inflicted upon his youngest victim.
The Murders
Westley Allan Dodd was born on the 3rd of July, 1961, in Toppenish, Yakima County, Washington. From early adolescence, Dodd engaged in predatory pedophilic behaviour, accumulating multiple arrests and juvenile diversions across Washington, Idaho, and Oregon for child molestation, indecent liberties, and voyeurism. Despite numerous evaluations identifying him as an untreatable, compulsive pedophile, he was repeatedly returned to the community under minimal supervision or probation.
In the autumn of 1989, having relocated to Vancouver, Clark County, Dodd’s offences escalated into predatory murder:
- William Neer (10) and Cole Neer (11) – On the late afternoon of Tuesday, the 5th of September, 1989, the two brothers were playing in David Douglas Park in Vancouver. Dodd stalked them into a secluded, wooded gully, drew a hunting knife, and forced them to strip. Dodd sexually abused Cole, then repeatedly stabbed both boys in the chest and throat before cutting their throats. He concealed their bodies beneath branches and leaves.
- Lee Iseli (4) – On the morning of Friday, the 27th of October, 1989, Dodd abducted four-year-old Lee Iseli from near his home in Vancouver. Dodd took the child to his rented apartment, where he subjected him to prolonged sexual abuse and physical torture. Dodd then tied a noose with a length of drapery cord, suspended the four-year-old from a bedroom wardrobe hook, and hanged him to death. He later placed the body inside a plastic bin and disposed of it in a nearby wooded area.
Dodd was apprehended on the 6th of November, 1989, at a cinema in Camas, Clark County. An alert theatre manager observed Dodd attempting to abduct a six-year-old boy from the men’s lavatory and intervened, restraining Dodd until local police arrived.
Following his arrest, Dodd asked to speak with homicide detectives and delivered exhaustive, graphic confessions to the murders of the Neer brothers and Lee Iseli, leading officers directly to Iseli’s hidden remains and handing over a detailed handwritten diary recording his crimes, fantasies, and plans to construct an abattoir for children.
The Plea and Sentence
In July 1990, Dodd appeared before Judge Robert L. Harris in the Superior Court of Clark County. Rejecting the counsel of his court-appointed public defenders, Dodd entered formal pleas of guilty to three counts of aggravated first-degree murder.
Under Washington law, a special sentencing proceeding was convened before Judge Harris. Dodd waived his right to a sentencing jury, offered no mitigating evidence, and actively demanded the death penalty. He testified that if he were ever permitted to live, even in maximum security, he would seek every opportunity to kill again, stating under oath: “I must be executed before I hurt any more children.”
On the 27th of July, 1990, Judge Harris ruled that there were insufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency and formally sentenced Dodd to death on all three counts.
Insistence on Hanging and Legal Challenges
Under Washington State statutes at the time (RCW 10.95.080), lethal injection was provided as an alternative, but hanging remained the statutory default method unless the condemned prisoner affirmatively elected lethal injection in writing.
Dodd steadfastly refused to request the needle, specifying that he wanted to be hanged:
“I made a choice between hanging and lethal injection. I chose hanging because that’s how I killed Lee Iseli. I feel it is only right that I be executed in the same manner.”
Dodd forbade his attorneys from filing any appeals on his behalf. However, civil liberties organisations and anti-death penalty campaigners attempted to intervene over his objections. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and federal public defenders filed “next friend” petitions, asserting that:
- Dodd was mentally deranged and suicidal, meaning the state was assisting in an act of state-sanctioned suicide;
- Judicial hanging was an inherently barbaric relic of the nineteenth century that constituted “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
To resolve the constitutional challenge to hanging, the federal courts ordered an evidentiary hearing. Washington correctional authorities reconstructed their historic gurney and trapdoor gallows within a converted brick building at the Walla Walla penitentiary. Modern military and British Home Office drop tables—calculating the drop length based on the prisoner’s weight to ensure immediate dislocation of the cervical vertebrae without risk of decapitation—were submitted as evidence.
On the 22nd of December, 1992, US District Judge Carolyn Dimmick upheld the constitutionality of hanging, finding that when properly conducted with scientifically calibrated drop tables, hanging produces instantaneous unconsciousness and does not violate the Eighth Amendment.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Washington Supreme Court affirmed that Dodd was legally competent to waive his appeals. In the final twenty-four hours, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected four separate applications for emergency stays without dissent.
The Execution
Dodd was transferred to the execution suite at the Washington State Penitentiary. For his final meal, he requested salmon, chips (french fries), steamed broccoli, asparagus, and a soft drink.
The gallows at Walla Walla was housed inside a two-storey converted building. The trapdoor was positioned over an open brick pit on the ground level, surrounded by viewing galleries with large glass windows.
Dodd weighed approximately 150 pounds (68 kg). In accordance with the standard drop table calculation, prison officials determined that a drop of 7 feet 1 inch (2.16 metres) was required. The rope—a 3/4-inch diameter manila hemp rope that had been soaked, stretched, and treated to eliminate elasticity—was fitted with a standard military execution knot (with multiple coils, commonly known as a hangman’s noose) lubricated with paraffin wax to ensure a rapid, unimpeded slide.
Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, the 5th of January, 1993, Dodd was escorted to the gallows platform by four correctional officers. He ascended the short wooden stairs willingly.
Dodd was positioned over the split in the double-leaf trapdoor. His ankles, knees, and wrists were secured with heavy leather straps to prevent kicking or arm movement during the drop.
When asked by Penitentiary Superintendent Tana Wood if he had any final words, Dodd looked straight ahead toward the gallery and spoke calmly into the microphone:
“I was once asked by someone: Isn’t there any other way? No, there isn’t. I had to die, and I’m glad I’m dying. I’m sorry for all the pain I caused the Iseli family, the Neer family, and my own family… I found peace in the Lord, and I’m ready to go home.”
At 12:05 a.m., an officer placed a black fabric hood over Dodd’s head. The heavy noose was placed over his neck, and the knot was carefully adjusted behind his left ear to ensure that the snap of the rope would fracture the cervical vertebrae (specifically the second and third vertebrae) and sever the spinal cord upon reaching the bottom of the drop.
At a signal from the superintendent, an executioner inside an adjoining control booth pulled a mechanical release lever.
At 12:06 a.m., the trapdoors sprang open with a loud wooden crash. Dodd fell through the 7-foot opening. When the rope snapped taut, there was a sharp, audible crack as his neck was instantly broken.
Dodd hung motionless at the end of the rope beneath the gallows platform, his toes suspended approximately two feet above the pit floor. There was no visible thrashing, kicking, or struggling. A physician entered the lower chamber with a stethoscope to monitor cardiac deceleration. Heart action ceased after several minutes.
At 12:09 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, the physician formally pronounced life extinct. Westley Allan Dodd was 31 years of age.
His execution was the 189th carried out in the United States since 1976 and the first by judicial hanging in modern American history. (Only two further hangings took place in the United States in the post-Furman era: Charles Rodman Campbell in Washington in 1994, and Billy Bailey in Delaware in 1996.) In 2018, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional under the state constitution, and in 2023, the Washington Legislature formally repealed all remaining capital statutes, dismantling the gallows at Walla Walla permanently.
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