Kentucky Executes Man by Injection
Repo...@uni.com
Associated
Press news wire:
Kentucky Executes Man by Injection
By JAMES PRICHARD
EDDYVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- A man who murdered his adoptive parents was
executed by
injection on Tuesday.
Edward Lee Harper Jr., who said he preferred death to the slow torture
of life
in prison, was the first person in the state to be executed by
injection.
Previous executions used the electric chair.
Harper, 50, saved his last statement to his 27-year-old son.
``I love you and I'll be waiting for you on the other side. I'll be
waiting for
you, boy,'' Harper said. ``That's all I have to say.''
The execution previous to Harper's was the 1997 death of Harold McQueen.
The
last execution before that took place 35 years ago.
Harper's was the first execution in which the inmate could choose their
method
of execution: electrocution or injection.
Harper was sentenced to death for murdering his parents, Alice and
Edward Lee
Harper Sr., who had adopted him as an infant. After entering his
parents' home
in the early morning hours of Feb. 19, 1982, he shot them both with a
.38-caliber handgun while they were in bed.
Harper, who had been laid off from his job as a machinist in December
1981,
stood to inherit an $86,541 insurance policy on his father's life.
Harper said at his trial that his father had asked him to shoot him and
his
wife because she was mentally ill and the elder Harper couldn't bear to
put her
in an institution.
AP-NY-05-26-99
-----------------------------------------------------------
Mo., Ky. Execute Convicted Killers
By TRACI ANGEL
POTOSI, Mo. (AP) -- A man who bludgeoned a woman to death after she
refused to
pay him $30 to wash her car was executed early today by injection.
Jessie Lee Wise, who was convicted of killing 49-year-old Geraldine
McDonald
with a pipe wrench in 1988, died shortly before 1 a.m. at Potosi
Correctional
Center.
As Wise prepared to die, a man who murdered his adoptive parents and
said he
preferred death to the slow torture of life in prison was executed in
Kentucky
on Tuesday.
Edward Lee Harper Jr., was the first person in the state to be executed
by
injection, a method he chose over the electric chair at Kentucky State
Penitentiary in Eddyville.
Harper was sentenced to death for murdering his parents, Alice and
Edward Lee
Harper Sr., who had adopted him as an infant. After entering his
parents' home
on Feb. 19, 1982, he shot them both with a .38-caliber handgun while
they were
in bed.
Harper, 50, saved his last statement for his 27-year-old son. ``I love
you and
I'll be waiting for you on the other side. I'll be waiting for you,
boy,''
Harper said. ``That's all I have to say.''
In Missouri, Wise's last words were for his spiritual advisor, the Rev.
Carole
Mehl. A prison spokesman said his last words were directed to Mehl:
``Carole, I
love you very much. Remember me.''
Prosecutors said Wise approached Mrs. McDonald on Aug. 27, 1988, and
asked to
wash and wax her car. He said he would need $30 in advance. When she
refused,
Wise grabbed a pipe wrench, followed Mrs. McDonald into her home, and
struck
her several times in the back of the head, killing her.
He stole Mrs. McDonald's money, jewelry and credit cards, trading some
of the
jewelry for cocaine and pawning the rest. In a confession to police,
Wise said
he was desperate for money.
Wise had been released from prison four years earlier after serving 13
years of
a life sentence for shooting and killing Ralph Gianino Jr. during a $26
robbery.
``He's not going to bother a third family,'' said Ralph Gianino III, the
slain
man's son. The death penalty wasn't an option when Wise was sentenced in
1972.
AP-NY-05-26-99
------------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of today's Reuters news wire:
Harper Dies By Lethal Injection
May 26, 1999
Reuters
(EDDYVILLE) -- Condemned killer Eddie Harper got his wish. The
50-year-old
Jefferson County man was executed at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in
Eddyville last night. Prison officials pronounced Harper dead at
seven:28 p-m,
following a lethal injection. Before he was put to death, Harper
apologized for
the 1982 murders of his adoptive parents and told his 27-year-old son he
would
"see him on the other side". Only a handful of protestors gathered
outside the
prison during the execution. Harper is the first Death Row inmate in
Kentucky
to die by lethal injection.
--------------------------------------------------------
The following four news articles all appear courtesy of the 5/26/99
online
edition of The Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper:
Wednesday, May 26, 1999
HARPER EXECUTED
Killer blocked lawyers' efforts to save him
Problem delayed state's first lethal injection
By ROBERT T. GARRETT and JAMES MALONE, The Courier-Journal
EDDYVILLE, Ky. -- Double murderer Eddie Harper, who after 16 years on
death row
said he preferred death over life, was executed by injection last night.
He
died with his spiritual adviser and his son gazing on from behind a
window.
Harper expressed remorse for what he called his "terrible crime,"
killing his
parents as they slept in their Valley Station home in Jefferson County.
Lying
strapped to the gurney, in a brief statement picked up by a microphone,
Harper
apologized to his "mom's side of the family."
He then told his son, Ben Sheehan, 27:
"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."
A prison doctor pronounced Harper dead at 7:28 p.m. CDT at the Kentucky
State
Penitentiary.
The execution, Kentucky's first by injection, was delayed because
Corrections
Department employees on the 15-member execution team had trouble
inserting an
intravenous needle into Harper's left arm, said department spokeswoman
Carol
Czirr. At 7:10 p.m., the team successfully found a vein just above
Harper's
left hand.
Warden Philip Parker ordered the execution to proceed at 7:16 p.m., and
chemicals started flowing into Harper. A minute later, his toes wiggled
and he
licked his lips. Eyes blinking, Harper let out a sigh or gasp. Deputy
Warden
William Henderson immediately turned a microphone off. At 7:18, Harper's
face
turned slightly purple and became puffy.
For the next 10 minutes, Harper didn't move and could not be seen
breathing.
His eyes remained open. Parker pronounced him dead after being alerted
through
an earphone that the doctor in an adjacent room had confirmed Harper's
death by
reading a printout from a heart monitor.
Sheehan, who had entered the witness room holding hands with volunteer
chaplain
Paul Stevens of Dawson Springs, exhaled deeply at 7:23 and put his face
in his
hands. Stevens, who regularly gives communion to about a dozen death-row
inmates, asked Sheehan moments later, "You OK?"
Sheehan nodded. But he appeared to glare at nine reporters who scribbled
notes
while witnessing the execution.
Security was tight. Some inmates could be heard shouting as the media
witnesses
left the cellhouse containing the death chamber at 7:32.
Harper's death came 17 years after he murdered his parents but less than
a year
after he said he decided he wanted to stop further legal appeals of his
case.
Hours before the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final
appeal by
his former lawyers. They had sought to delay the execution, against
Harper's
will.
Harper, 50, was only the second person executed in Kentucky in 37 years.
He was
the first in modern times to give up some of his rights to appeal.
He was the 164th person to be executed at the penitentiary near
Eddyville.
Nationwide, he was the 70th death-row inmate since the reimposition of
capital
punishment in 1976 to have voluntarily waived appeals at the time of his
execution.
Prison officials said they moved Harper to a cell closer to the death
chamber
45 minutes before his execution.
He was led unrestrained into the execution chamber after sharing a final
prayer
in his cell with Stevens.
Once he was placed on the gurney at 7 p.m., his arms were secured with
elastic
bandages and IVs were inserted into each arm.
Earlier in the day, Harper consumed his last meal, three bacon, lettuce
and
tomato sandwiches, potato chips, pecan pie with ice cream and a soft
drink, at
3 p.m. The Rev. Robert Drury of Calvert City administered the Anointing
of the
Sick Rites (Last Rites) at 5 p.m. in Harper's cell.
Harper converted to Roman Catholicism in prison. He was known as a
well-behaved
inmate, if something of a loner.
He awoke early yesterday -- about 5:30 a.m. -- for a final day that
included
visits from his son, two Catholic chaplains, a lawyer and prison
officials.
Harper had his second visit in four days with his son, who, at Harper's
request, agreed to witness his execution. Prison officials said that
before
Sheehan's Friday visit to his father, Harper had no visits from
relatives
during the more than 16 years he had been imprisoned in Eddyville.
As to why his son hadn't visited sooner, Harper said in an interview
Thursday
that his son was suffering.
"Ben's hurting inside. He's mad because those were his grandparents I
killed,"
Harper said.
Most of Harper's visit earlier yesterday with his son was "calm . . .
and you
could see gestures back and forth," Czirr said. But toward the end they
embraced and it got "quite emotional . . . as they said their goodbyes,"
she
said.
Harper's daughter-in-law, Kim Sheehan, who had corresponded with him
regularly
in recent months and helped to repair a breach between the father and
son,
apparently did not visit the penitentiary because she was angry that
Harper
last Thursday displayed photos of her family during a televised
interview.
Stevens, the Catholic chaplain who had grown close to Harper in recent
years,
said late Monday that Kim Sheehan blamed Harper for intruding on her
family's
privacy. But Stevens said he calmed Harper, who was disappointed he did
not get
to meet his 19-month-old granddaughter.
"I told Eddie I don't think that's the real reason," Stevens said. "I
said, 'I
think they can't handle it.' "
Stevens said Harper was "very calm and collected," but adamant about
wanting to
go ahead with the execution, during a visit late Monday.
Harper also met for about 15 minutes with Marguerite Thomas, a
Department of
Public Advocacy attorney, Czirr said. The topic of that meeting was not
disclosed but prison officials said Thomas let Harper know she was
available to
help. Thomas did not talk to reporters.
Earlier in the afternoon, Harper told prison officials that he wanted to
give
some of his personal possessions, such as a radio and television, to
three
other inmates, Czirr said.
Harper asked for his son to receive 17 photographs, a handwritten
prayer, his
catechism and a cross.
The mood around the prison did not appear as tense as when Harold
McQueen was
electrocuted two years ago. Nor did it attract the same number of media
and
protesters.
Only about five television satellite trucks showed up compared to the 19
when
McQueen was executed. And the prison briefing room was only about
half-filled
with reporters and photographers -- it was filled for McQueen's
execution.
About 70 media representatives signed up to cover this execution
compared to
about 120 last time.
Eddyville's 800 inmates have been locked down since 6 p.m. Monday night,
and
have been let out only to eat meals under escort, said Barry Banister, a
prison
spokesman. All visitors arriving had to pass through three police
checkpoints.
There were 28 National Guard troops and about 40 Kentucky State Police
on the
grounds augmenting the prison's security force. The Kentucky Water
Patrol also
manned two boats on Lake Barkley in front of the prison to keep
sightseers from
anchoring nearby.
Harper asked that his body be cremated and his ashes be buried at the
Western
Kentucky Correctional Complex at Fredonia. His body left the prison
through the
same portal as did McQueen's.
Such requests are unusual but not unheard of, said Michael Bradley, a
supervisor with the Corrections Department.
Lyon County Coroner Ronnie Patton took Harper's body to the Chief
Medical
Examiner's Office in Louisville.
----------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, May 26, 1999
THE PROTESTERS
By CHRIS POYNTER, The Courier-Journal
EDDYVILLE, Ky. -- Four years ago, Kaye Gallagher joined members of her
church
in Henderson to watch and discuss the movie "Dead Man Walking," which
chronicled the last days of a man on death row.
The film moved her and, for the first time, she began thinking seriously
about
the government killing people in the name of justice. Last night, in a
valley
behind the Kentucky State Penitentiary, Gallagher joined 21 others from
around
the state to pray and sing hymns as Eddie Harper awaited death by lethal
injection.
"I do not want the state killing in my name or in anybody's name," said
Gallagher, who is heading Abolition 2000, a campaign to rid Kentucky of
the
death penalty by the end of next year. She called Harper's execution
"another
form of assisted suicide. We realize he's in deep pain, he's depressed,
he has
no reason, he feels, to live."
Harper had said he was ready to die and wanted no further appeals of his
case.
Last night's protest was attended by a couple of nuns from nearby
Owensboro and
members of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, based in
Louisville. Unlike the protests at Harold McQueen's execution two years
ago,
there were no people present who supported the death penalty.
At 6 p.m. CDT, about an hour before the execution, the protesters
gathered in a
circle, holding small posters that said "Execute Justice, NOT People."
They
held a prayer service, opening with the song "Be Not Afraid." The
stone-and-brick prison, surrounded by razor wire, sat about a
quarter-mile away
on a hill.
The men and women prayed for Harper, the executioners and Gov. Paul
Patton.
They sang "Amazing Grace" and other hymns.
As 7 p.m. approached, people began glancing at their watches, then
turned and
gazed at the prison, staring silently and waiting official word that
Harper was
dead.
At 7:42, a prison official came to the protest site and announced that
the time
of death was 7:28 and told those gathered about Harper's final words, in
which
he apologized to his family for the pain he had caused. Some of the
protesters
wiped away tears, then they joined hands in reciting the Lord's Prayer.
Gallagher said "Dead Man Walking" made her realize that the state, in
essence,
is committing the same crime that death-row inmates have committed.
"We hope that this is the last execution in Kentucky," she said before
the
service began.
Her words were echoed by Sister Rosemary Keough, an Ursuline nun of
Mount Saint
Joseph's in Maple Mount, Ky. She wore a yellow button on her jacket that
read:
"Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is
wrong."
Keough said she and other nuns have been praying for Harper and wrote
him a
letter, asking him to reconsider his desire to stop all appeals and be
put to
death. Keough said Harper met with an Ursuline nun on Sunday and told
her that
"he was ready. He felt like he had to do this."
"I think we can sympathize; it's got to be a rough life," she said. But
"God
gave us life, it's God's right to take it, not for us to do it."
Sister Chris Beckett of Owensboro, who is a volunteer chaplain on death
row and
had counseled Harper, said she "felt numb, even though I knew it was
coming.
Mixed with that, though, is a bit of anger, but also a sense of great
peace for
Eddie and for his family."
In Louisville, two hours before the execution, more than 80 people
gathered at
the Cathedral of the Assumption for a prayer vigil. They began with
readings
from scripture and also ended by singing "Amazing Grace."
Many in the crowd held signs that said "Execution is NOT the solution"
and
"Don't kill for me."
"All people have a right to life, even those who have committed heinous
crimes," said the Rev. Dick Sullivan of St. James Catholic Church in
Elizabethtown, who led the vigil.
Staff writer Mark Schaver contributed to this story.
--------------------------------------------------------------
THE FUTURE
Execution not expected to be common in state
By JOSEPH GERTH, The Courier-Journal
Last night's execution of Eddie Harper marked the second time in less
than two
years that state and federal courts have allowed Kentucky to put a man
to
death.
But that doesn't mean executions will become commonplace, according to
Stephen
Bright, a Danville native and one of the nation's foremost death-penalty
opponents.
"The (U.S.) Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty as
constitutional,"
Bright said. "Some of those death sentences are going to be upheld and
that's
going to be true of any state . . . but I don't expect a big surge. Only
in
Texas and Virginia have you seen a big surge."
Texas has executed 176 prisoners since reintroducing the death penalty,
and
Virginia has executed 67.
Since the death penalty was declared constitutional in 1976, Kentuckian
Harold
McQueen was the first person allowed by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals
in
Cincinnati to be executed, on July 1, 1997. The court also cleared the
way for
Wilford Lee Berry to be executed in Ohio on Feb. 19 of this year.
Bright noted that only McQueen's execution was against his wishes --
both Berry
and Harper chose to end their appeals before they had run their course.
It's unclear who will be the next to die in Kentucky's execution chamber
because "volunteers" such as Harper could leap ahead of others, and the
courts
don't necessarily move the oldest cases first. The case of Eugene Gall,
for
instance, has been at the 6th Circuit since 1994 and was there before
McQueen's
case.
Of the 39 men on Kentucky's death row, six are in their final rounds of
appeals. Of those, Gall and David Skaggs appear to be closest to
execution.
Gall, who in 1978 raped and murdered a 12-year-old suburban Cincinnati
girl,
and Skaggs, who murdered an elderly Glasgow couple during a 1981
robbery, are
awaiting rulings by the appeals court.
Four others are a step further from execution, with appeals pending in
U.S.
District Court. They are:
疋avid Matthews, who killed his estranged wife and mother-in-law in
Louisville
in 1981.
姫arramore Lee Sanborn, who kidnapped, raped, sodomized and killed a
Henry
County woman in 1983.
膝regory Wilson, who raped and killed a woman in Kenton County in 1987.
柊nd Kevin Stanford, who, with two accomplices, abducted, raped and
murdered
Baerbel Poore in Louisville in 1981. Stanford was a juvenile at the
time, and
his case set a precedent when the U.S. Supreme Court said in 1989 that
16- and
17-year-olds could be executed.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, executions in Kentucky
were
almost common, with 162 men dying in the electric chair at Eddyville
between
1911 and 1962.
On July 13, 1928, Kentucky executed seven murderers in one morning.
Circuit
Judge Bill Cunningham, who has written a book on the history of
Kentucky's
state penitentiary, believes that "Friday the 13th" holds the record for
the
most non-military executions in U.S. history.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, May 26, 1999
A JUROR SPEAKS
Foreman has no regrets about death sentence
By ROBERT T. GARRETT, The Courier-Journal
The foreman of the jury that sentenced Eddie Harper to death said
yesterday
that he has no regrets and believes Harper deserved to die because of
"the
horror of what he had done."
Opponents of the death penalty who have protested Harper's execution in
recent
days "don't even realize the details of the case," said the jury
foreman,
Philip Diblasi, staff archaeologist at the University of Louisville.
Diblasi said testimony at Harper's 1982 trial showed that he carefully
plotted
the murders of his parents, shopping for a handgun and "wadcutter
bullets," to
"cause the most tissue damage."
After killing Alice and Edward Lee Harper Sr. as they slept in their
home in
Valley Station, Harper faked a burglary and went to nightclubs on
Seventh
Street Road, Diblasi said.
"He kept asking bartenders what time it was, to create an alibi. I mean,
this
guy was about as cool and calculating and premeditated as a guy could
be."
Diblasi said he served as a juror in Harper's case while he was a
graduate
student at U of L. The trial was life-changing, Diblasi said.
Before he was selected as a juror, Diblasi said, he had been undecided
about
capital punishment but leaned against it because of his Roman Catholic
upbringing. But the trial "changed my perspective," he said.
"I mean, I am for the death penalty now. . . . You know, if there is no
real
penalty for this kind of activity that's a real penalty, then what's the
point?"
Diblasi, whom prosecutor Paul Richwalsky remembered as having served on
the
jury, said that at the end of the six-day trial, "it was clear on the
evidence
that was presented that this man was guilty."
"There were no holdouts," Diblasi said. "There was a lot of debate. We
almost
were debating our individual consciences in deciding to agree with the
death
penalty."
Deciding to recommend death "was an incredibly difficult thing . . . for
me to
decide to have a role in killing an individual," Diblasi said. "But . .
. the
evidence was so overwhelming, and the nature of the crime was so
brutal."
Diblasi said he thinks Harper was "playing games with people's minds" by
the
way he presented his crime to reporters and to a federal judge in the
final
days of his life.
Harper said he had killed his parents for money to impress a woman he
was
dating. He told a psychiatrist in 1985, and repeated to The
Courier-Journal
last week, that he had been abusing alcohol and smoking marijuana laced
with
PCP in the days before the murders. Harper said he may have been
temporarily
insane when he killed his parents.
But Diblasi and Richwalsky scoffed at the suggestion.
"He might have had a beer or two in the course of the night" of Feb. 18,
1982,
before he killed his parents early the next day, Richwalsky said. But
Harper
had "nothing else" in his system, the prosecutor said.
Richwalsky noted that Harper's defense at trial "was that his dad wanted
him to
do it" because his mother was mentally ill and his father could not bear
to see
her in an institution.
Richwalsky said the idea Harper was obsessed with a woman is likewise
"something that's been conjured up."
Diblasi noted that after the killings Harper went on a buying spree,
purchasing
expensive items on credit and telling merchants "he'd be coming into a
lot of
money soon."
Harper "did it for the money," Di-blasi said.
"Everybody is so concerned about him," Diblasi said, alluding to
death-penalty
opponents. "How about what he did to the two people who adopted him and
loved
him and took care of him? . . . He's getting off easy compared to what
he did
to those people."
Alvena Ferreira
>
> The following two news articles both appear courtesy of today's
> Associated
> Press news wire:
>
>
that PAY THE BILL for their upkeep, which the last time I checked ran
around $50K/yr/person. Let's see how many still want to do it when they
have to put their money where their mouth is.
al