The faces on death row - Ten men await execution in Alabama
Hoodude
The faces on death row
Ten men await execution in Alabama
By Stephanie Taylor
Staff Writer
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20070812/NEWS/708120761/1010/NEWS05
Ten men, including Luther Jerome Williams, are sitting on Alabama’s
death row awaiting execution for murders committed in West Alabama
counties.
# As of Aug. 3, there were 199 inmates on death row, with an average
age of 40. James Edmond McWilliams, 49, the oldest of the inmates from
West Alabama, was sentenced to death in 1986.
He was convicted of the December 1984 rape, robbery and murder of
Patricia Vallery Reynolds, a 22-year-old convenience store clerk who
was shot to death at the store where she worked on Hargrove Road East.
# Victor Stephens, 44, was sentenced in 1987 for killing two men at a
country store in the rural Hale County community of Wedgeworth.
Stephens and another man shot store owner J.R. Bailey, 72, and Adam
Pickens, 82, on Jan. 20, 1986.
# Roy Perkins, 47, was convicted of capital murder in 1994 for the
1990 shooting death of Tuscaloosa County housewife Cathy Gilliam. She
was kidnapped from her home in the New Lexington community just south
of Fayette and shot in the stomach.
The Alabama Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2002, although his
lawyers argued that Perkins had an IQ of 76, was an alcoholic and had
borderline personality disorder. An IQ of 70 is considered to be the
threshold for mental retardation.
# Willie Dobyne was convicted of the January 1991 shooting deaths of
Linda Snipes and Leon Billingsley during a $200 robbery of the County
Truck Stop in Brent.
Evidence showed that Dobyne shot Billingsley, and co-defendant
Cleophus Dukes shot Snipes. The court upheld the sentence in 2001
after lawyers claimed juror misconduct during the trial.
# Christopher Lee Price, 34, of Winfield was sentenced in 1993 for the
Dec. 22, 1991, killing of Bill Lynn, 57, a Fayette County Church of
Christ minister.
Lynn’s wife testified that her husband had been assembling Christmas
presents for their grandchildren and went outside to investigate when
their power went out. The wife testified that she saw someone outside
dressed in black, standing in a karate stance and holding a sword over
her husband. Lynn died from more than 30 wounds.
His lawyers argued unsuccessfully in 2002 that Price deserved another
sentencing hearing because relatives and former classmates had agreed
to testify about him.
# Albert Mack III, 39, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995
for the July 1993 shooting death of Patrick Cory Holman, 24. Holman’s
body was found in the trunk of a partly burned Oldsmobile on Sanders
Ferry Road in Tuscaloosa. He had been shot in the head.
Mack, 36, didn’t dispute shooting Holman but denied that a robbery had
taken place, a necessary element for a capital murder charge.
Mack said he shot Holman because he believed Holman and his cousin
intended to kill him after a friend sold Holman $500 worth of “bad dope."
# Eddie Duval Powell III, 37, was convicted of the March 1995 rape and
shooting death of his elderly neighbor, Mattie Wesson of Holt.
He was found guilty of murder, burglary, rape and sodomy of Wesson,
70, in her home on March 25, 1995.
His attorneys contended in 1990 that there were serious problems with
the police’s questioning and that his trial should have been moved out
of Tuscaloosa County because of extensive media coverage. The state
Supreme Court upheld the ruling.
# Willie Minor, 34, of Tuscaloosa was convicted of beating his
2-month-old son Ebious Jennings to death at their Tuscaloosa home.
The 10-pound baby died April 16, 1995.
Minor told the jury in the sentencing phase of the trial, “I can’t
spend the rest of my life knowing I am innocent of beating my child,
so I ask you the jury to sentence me to death in the electric chair."
He later changed his mind and asked for a sentence of life without parole.
The Alabama Supreme Court ordered a retrial in 2001. He was convicted
and sentenced again in February 2001.
# Devin Moore, 22, of Jasper is one of the youngest men on death row.
He was born in 1985 after a good number of his fellow inmates had
already been sentenced to death.
Moore was sentenced in October 2005 for the killings of two Fayette
police officers and a dispatcher in June 2003.
Moore stole a police car and shot officers Arnold Strickland and James
Crump and dispatcher Leslie “Ace" Mealer at the Fayette Police
Department using Strickland’s gun.
Moore’s attorneys tried to claim that his compulsive playing of the
video game “Grand Theft Auto" contributed to his actions. Judge James
Moore didn’t allow the jury to hear evidence about video games.
Moore, who is black, has said that he didn’t get a fair trial because
there were no black jurors.
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