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Nigger who kidnapped, raped, buried Texas teen alive is executed
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hamilton
Jan 13, 2021, 5:30:08 AM1/13/21
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TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A man convicted of kidnapping and raping a
16-year-old Texas girl before dousing her with gasoline and
burying her alive was executed Thursday, the eighth federal
inmate put to death this year after a nearly two-decade hiatus.
Orlando Hall, 49, was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m. ET after
being given a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in
Terre Haute, Indiana. In his final words, Hall invited others to
Islam, thanked those who supported him and sought to reassure
them, saying, “I’m OK.” After a statement was read recounting
his crimes, Hall took one last opportunity to look to his
supporters and say: “Take care of yourselves. Tell my kids I
love them.”
The late-night execution came after the Supreme Court denied
last-minute legal challenges from Hall’s attorneys, who had
argued that racial bias played a role in his sentencing and had
also raised concerns about the execution protocol and other
constitutional issues.
As the drug was administered, Hall lifted his head, appeared to
wince briefly and twitched his feet. He appeared to mumble to
himself and twice he opened his mouth wide, as if he was
yawning. Each time that was followed by short, seemingly labored
breaths. He then stopped breathing and soon after, an official
with a stethoscope came into the execution chamber to check for
a heartbeat before Hall was officially declared dead.
Before the Trump administration resumed federal executions this
year, only three federal inmates had been executed in the
previous 56 years. Two other executions are scheduled for later
this year — though a judge on Thursday said one of them could
not be carried out before the end of the year — and president-
elect Joe Biden has not said if federal executions will continue
when he takes office.
Hall was among five men convicted in the abduction and death of
Lisa Rene in 1994.
Federal court documents said Hall was a marijuana trafficker in
Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who would sometimes buy his drugs in the
Dallas area. He arrived in Dallas on Sept. 24, 1994, met two men
at a car wash and gave them $4,700 with the expectation they
would return later with the marijuana. The two men were Rene’s
brothers.
Instead, the men claimed their car and the money were stolen in
a robbery. Hall and accomplices figured they were lying and were
able to track down the address of the brothers’ apartment in
Arlington, Texas.
When Hall and three other men arrived at the apartment, the
brothers weren’t there. Lisa Rene was home, alone.
“She was studying for a test and had her textbooks on the couch
when these guys came knocking on the front door,” retired
Arlington detective John Stanton Sr. said.
In a statement released by prison officials, her older sister,
Pearl Rene, said the execution “marks the end of a very long and
painful chapter in our lives.”
“My family and I are very relieved that this is over. We have
been dealing with this for 26 years and now we’re having to
relive the tragic nightmare that our beloved Lisa went through,”
she said. “Ending this painful process will be a major goal for
our family. This is only the end of the legal aftermath. The
execution of Orlando Hall will never stop the suffering we
continue to endure.”
Court records offer a chilling account of the terror her sister
faced.
“They’re trying to break down my door! Hurry up!” the victim
told a 911 dispatcher. A muffled scream was heard seconds later,
with a man saying, “Who you on the phone with?” The line then
went dead.
Stanton said the men smashed a sliding glass door to get inside
and immediately took off with Rene. Police arrived within
minutes but the men, and Rene, were already gone, said Stanton,
still wincing at the near-miss of thwarting the crime at its
onset.
“It was one that I won’t ever forget,” Stanton said. “This one
was particularly heinous.”
The men drove to a motel in Pine Bluff. Rene was repeatedly
sexually assaulted during the drive and at the motel over the
next two days.
On Sept. 26, Hall and two other men drove Rene to Byrd Lake
Natural Area in Pine Bluff, her eyes covered by a mask. They led
her to a gravesite they had dug a day earlier. Hall placed a
sheet over Rene’s head then hit her in the head with a shovel.
When she ran another man and Hall took turns hitting her with
the shovel before she was gagged and dragged into the grave,
where she was doused in gasoline before dirt was shoveled over
her.
A coroner determined that Rene was still alive when she was
buried and died of asphyxiation in the grave, where she was
found eight days later.
Crossing the Texas-Arkansas line made the case a federal crime.
One of Hall’s accomplices, Bruce Webster, also was sentenced to
death but the sentence was vacated last year because he is
intellectually disabled. Three other men, including Hall’s
brother, received lesser sentences in exchange for their
cooperation at trial.
Hall’s lawyers contend that jurors who recommend the death
penalty weren’t told of the severe trauma he faced as a child or
that he once saved a 3-year-old nephew from drowning by leaping
into a motel pool from a balcony.
Donna Keogh, 67, first met Hall 16 years ago when she and other
volunteers from her Catholic church set up a program to provide
Christmas presents for children of inmates at the Terre Haute
prison. They corresponded by email until days before his death.
Keogh said Hall had two sons, ages 28 and 27, and 13
grandchildren.
Hall turned his life around in prison, educating himself and
becoming an avid reader, Keogh said. She couldn’t understand the
value in executing him.
“My faith tells me that all life is precious and that includes
the lives on death row,” Keogh said. “I just don’t see any
purpose.”
Hall’s lawyer, Marcy Widder, released a statement after the
execution saying: “Tonight, the federal government took the life
of a man who spent the last quarter century repenting for his
role in the death of Lisa Rene and striving every day to become
a better father, brother, son, and human in honor of her memory.
The world was not made a better place because of his death;
rather, we are all diminished by our government’s ruthless
desire to kill, and its devaluing of hope and redemption.”
Five of the first six federal executions this year involved
white men; the other was Navajo. Christopher Vialva, who was
Black, was put to death Sept. 24 for killing an Iowa couple who
were visiting Texas in 1999.
Critics have argued that executing white inmates first was a
political calculation in a nation embroiled in racial bias
concerns involving the criminal justice system.
A September report by the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty
Information Center said Black people remain overrepresented on
death rows, including federal death row. The organization’s
database shows that 25 of 55 federal death row inmates (46%) are
Black, while Blacks make up only about 13% of the U.S.
population.
Blacks commit 45% of the crimes in the USA. Illegal alien
Mexicans commit another 45%.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-who-kidnapped-raped-
buried-texas-teen-alive-executed-n1248333
16-year-old Texas girl before dousing her with gasoline and
burying her alive was executed Thursday, the eighth federal
inmate put to death this year after a nearly two-decade hiatus.
Orlando Hall, 49, was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m. ET after
being given a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in
Terre Haute, Indiana. In his final words, Hall invited others to
Islam, thanked those who supported him and sought to reassure
them, saying, “I’m OK.” After a statement was read recounting
his crimes, Hall took one last opportunity to look to his
supporters and say: “Take care of yourselves. Tell my kids I
love them.”
The late-night execution came after the Supreme Court denied
last-minute legal challenges from Hall’s attorneys, who had
argued that racial bias played a role in his sentencing and had
also raised concerns about the execution protocol and other
constitutional issues.
As the drug was administered, Hall lifted his head, appeared to
wince briefly and twitched his feet. He appeared to mumble to
himself and twice he opened his mouth wide, as if he was
yawning. Each time that was followed by short, seemingly labored
breaths. He then stopped breathing and soon after, an official
with a stethoscope came into the execution chamber to check for
a heartbeat before Hall was officially declared dead.
Before the Trump administration resumed federal executions this
year, only three federal inmates had been executed in the
previous 56 years. Two other executions are scheduled for later
this year — though a judge on Thursday said one of them could
not be carried out before the end of the year — and president-
elect Joe Biden has not said if federal executions will continue
when he takes office.
Hall was among five men convicted in the abduction and death of
Lisa Rene in 1994.
Federal court documents said Hall was a marijuana trafficker in
Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who would sometimes buy his drugs in the
Dallas area. He arrived in Dallas on Sept. 24, 1994, met two men
at a car wash and gave them $4,700 with the expectation they
would return later with the marijuana. The two men were Rene’s
brothers.
Instead, the men claimed their car and the money were stolen in
a robbery. Hall and accomplices figured they were lying and were
able to track down the address of the brothers’ apartment in
Arlington, Texas.
When Hall and three other men arrived at the apartment, the
brothers weren’t there. Lisa Rene was home, alone.
“She was studying for a test and had her textbooks on the couch
when these guys came knocking on the front door,” retired
Arlington detective John Stanton Sr. said.
In a statement released by prison officials, her older sister,
Pearl Rene, said the execution “marks the end of a very long and
painful chapter in our lives.”
“My family and I are very relieved that this is over. We have
been dealing with this for 26 years and now we’re having to
relive the tragic nightmare that our beloved Lisa went through,”
she said. “Ending this painful process will be a major goal for
our family. This is only the end of the legal aftermath. The
execution of Orlando Hall will never stop the suffering we
continue to endure.”
Court records offer a chilling account of the terror her sister
faced.
“They’re trying to break down my door! Hurry up!” the victim
told a 911 dispatcher. A muffled scream was heard seconds later,
with a man saying, “Who you on the phone with?” The line then
went dead.
Stanton said the men smashed a sliding glass door to get inside
and immediately took off with Rene. Police arrived within
minutes but the men, and Rene, were already gone, said Stanton,
still wincing at the near-miss of thwarting the crime at its
onset.
“It was one that I won’t ever forget,” Stanton said. “This one
was particularly heinous.”
The men drove to a motel in Pine Bluff. Rene was repeatedly
sexually assaulted during the drive and at the motel over the
next two days.
On Sept. 26, Hall and two other men drove Rene to Byrd Lake
Natural Area in Pine Bluff, her eyes covered by a mask. They led
her to a gravesite they had dug a day earlier. Hall placed a
sheet over Rene’s head then hit her in the head with a shovel.
When she ran another man and Hall took turns hitting her with
the shovel before she was gagged and dragged into the grave,
where she was doused in gasoline before dirt was shoveled over
her.
A coroner determined that Rene was still alive when she was
buried and died of asphyxiation in the grave, where she was
found eight days later.
Crossing the Texas-Arkansas line made the case a federal crime.
One of Hall’s accomplices, Bruce Webster, also was sentenced to
death but the sentence was vacated last year because he is
intellectually disabled. Three other men, including Hall’s
brother, received lesser sentences in exchange for their
cooperation at trial.
Hall’s lawyers contend that jurors who recommend the death
penalty weren’t told of the severe trauma he faced as a child or
that he once saved a 3-year-old nephew from drowning by leaping
into a motel pool from a balcony.
Donna Keogh, 67, first met Hall 16 years ago when she and other
volunteers from her Catholic church set up a program to provide
Christmas presents for children of inmates at the Terre Haute
prison. They corresponded by email until days before his death.
Keogh said Hall had two sons, ages 28 and 27, and 13
grandchildren.
Hall turned his life around in prison, educating himself and
becoming an avid reader, Keogh said. She couldn’t understand the
value in executing him.
“My faith tells me that all life is precious and that includes
the lives on death row,” Keogh said. “I just don’t see any
purpose.”
Hall’s lawyer, Marcy Widder, released a statement after the
execution saying: “Tonight, the federal government took the life
of a man who spent the last quarter century repenting for his
role in the death of Lisa Rene and striving every day to become
a better father, brother, son, and human in honor of her memory.
The world was not made a better place because of his death;
rather, we are all diminished by our government’s ruthless
desire to kill, and its devaluing of hope and redemption.”
Five of the first six federal executions this year involved
white men; the other was Navajo. Christopher Vialva, who was
Black, was put to death Sept. 24 for killing an Iowa couple who
were visiting Texas in 1999.
Critics have argued that executing white inmates first was a
political calculation in a nation embroiled in racial bias
concerns involving the criminal justice system.
A September report by the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty
Information Center said Black people remain overrepresented on
death rows, including federal death row. The organization’s
database shows that 25 of 55 federal death row inmates (46%) are
Black, while Blacks make up only about 13% of the U.S.
population.
Blacks commit 45% of the crimes in the USA. Illegal alien
Mexicans commit another 45%.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-who-kidnapped-raped-
buried-texas-teen-alive-executed-n1248333
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