According to court documents Antonio James would rob seventy year old Henry Silver as he was getting out of his vehicle. James would shoot Henry Silver before robbing him. Silver would die in the hospital a few hours later
Antonio James would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Antonio James would be executed by lethal injection on March 1 1996
Antonio James Case
A man who had avoided execution 13 times in his 14 years on death row was executed by injection early today for killing an elderly man in a 1979 robbery.
The prisoner, Antonio James, 42, had waited longer for his execution than any other prisoner still on the state’s death row. Mr. James was sentenced to die in 1982 for the murder of Henry Silver, 70, on New Year’s Day 1979 in New Orleans.
He had also been sentenced to life in prison for the robbery and murder of Alvin Adams on Jan. 23, 1979. Mr. James was captured in May 1979 after another robbery victim grabbed his gun and wounded him in the leg.
In appeals over the years, defense lawyers complained of ineffective counsel, no money to investigate the crimes and prosecutorial misconduct. They said Mr. James was retarded, had used drugs and had a deprived childhood in the housing projects of New Orleans
Lawyers also had five prison witnesses who said Mr. James’s accomplice had admitted firing the gun and killing Mr. Silver. The accomplice, Levon Price, received a suspended sentence after testifying that he had watched from a getaway car while Mr. James shot Mr. Silver.
The execution was the first here since the movie “Dead Man Walking” was released this winter. The movie was partly filmed at the Angola penitentiary and focused attention on executions in Louisiana.
According to court documents Kenneth Granviel would go into a home where he would sexually assault a woman before murdering her and four others: Laura McClendon, her 19-year-old sister Linda, 24-year-old cousin Martha, and two children, Steven and Natasha, both 2-year-olds.
Kenneth Granviel would later sexually assault and murder Betty Williams and Vera Hill
Kenneth Granviel would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Kenneth Granviel would be executed by lethal injection on February 27 1996
Kenneth Granviel Photos
Kenneth Granviel Case
A man who confessed to killing seven people, including a 2-year-old girl, by stabbing them with a butcher knife in two murderous rampages more than 21 years ago, was executed here this evening.
The man, Kenneth Granviel, 45, was executed by injection for the fatal stabbing of the girl. He had tied and gagged her and four members of her family, then stabbed them all with a butcher knife.
Mr. Granviel, a former machinist, declined to give a last statement. He was pronounced dead at 6:20 P.M., eight minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing into his arms.
Defense lawyers argued that Mr. Granviel should not have been executed because he was mentally incompetent and because the state failed to provide for a defense psychiatrist at his trial, at which he raised an insanity defense.
He was tried only for the murder of 2-year-old Natasha McClendon, who was stabbed to death along with her mother and three other relatives in Fort Worth on Oct. 7, 1974.
Mr. Granviel, a family friend, said he could not stop himself from killing Natasha. “I could see it happening, but there was nothing I could do about it,” he testified. “I could see myself stabbing this little girl I used to play with, I used to buy candy for.”
He surrendered to the police on Feb. 8, 1975, after raping a woman and abducting another and holding several people hostage at a house in Fort Worth. He later admitted killing two female friends who had been raped and stabbed with a knife.
Mr. Granviel, who spent 20 years and three months on death row, was the longest-serving condemned inmate in Texas to be executed.
He was originally scheduled to become the state’s first prisoner to be executed by lethal injection in September 1977. The date was blocked as lawyers challenged the constitutionality of the then-new execution method. Since then, 105 convicted killers have been executed in Texas
According to court documents William Bonin is believed to be responsible for the murder of at least twenty boys and young men and was convicted of fourteen murders: Dennis Frank Fox (17), Glenn Barker (14), Russell Rugh (15), Lawrence Sharp (17), Marcus Grabs (17), Donald Hyden (15), David Murillo (17), Charles Miranda (15), James McCabe (12), Ronald Gatlin (19), Harry Todd Turner (14), Steven Wood (16), Darin Lee Kendrick (19), Steven Jay Wells (18),
William Bonin would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
William Bonin would be executed by lethal injection on February 23 1996
William Bonin Photos
William Bonin Case
Defendant William Bonin, the “Freeway Killer,” kidnapped, robbed, raped and murdered a total of 14 teenaged boys between 1979 and 1980. His co-defendants were also young men between the ages of 17 and 21. The defendant was sentenced to death in 1982 for 10 murders throughout Los Angeles County. About one year later he was convicted in Orange County of the other four murders, for which he received a second death sentence.
Bonin also was suspected of murdering other males, whose bodies were found around the same period of time in Kern, Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino Counties. The defendant William Bonin was not prosecuted for those crimes. The following is a chronological, case-by-case summary of the crimes in each of the two counties from which Bonin received a death sentence.
With the help of four co-defendants, defendant William Bonin kidnapped, robbed, raped and murdered 10 teenaged boys in Los Angeles County between1979 and 1980.
On August 5, 1979, the defendant William Bonin and co-defendant Butts accosted Marcus Grabs, 17, in Newport Beach sometime between 6 and 10 p.m. Marcus, a German student on a backpacking tour of the United States, was sodomized, beaten and stabbed 77 times. His nude body was found the next day beside a road in Malibu, with an orange nylon cord loosely wrapped behind his head and a piece of ignition wire around one of his ankles.
On August 27, 1979, at 1 a.m., the defendant William Bonin and co-defendant Butts picked up Donald Hyden, 15, near the Gay Community Services Center in Los Angeles. His nude body was found at 11 a.m. near Liberty Canyon and the off ramp of the Ventura Freeway. Donald had been strangled by ligature and stabbed. He had been sodomized and it appeared that attempts had been made to cut off his testicles and slash his throat.
On September 9, 1979, in the early morning, David Murillo, 17, was bicycling to the movies in La Mirada when the defendant William Bonin and co-defendant Butts abducted him. David’s nude body was found three days later on a Ventura Highway off-ramp. His head had been bashed in with a tire iron, and he had been sodomized and strangled with a ligature.
On February 3, 1980, in the early morning, the defendant William Bonin, driving a van with co-defendant Miley, picked up Charles Miranda, 15, in West Hollywood. They drove several blocks away, parked, and the defendant sodomized Charles. The co-defendant tried to sodomize him, but was unable to sustain an erection. After the co-defendant took six dollars from Charles, the two men tied his feet and hands together. The defendant wrapped Charles’ shirt around his neck. Using a jack handle, the defendant twisted the shirt like a corkscrew until Charles was dead. The autopsy also revealed a blunt object had been inserted into Charles’ anus. The defendants drove to an alley in downtown Los Angeles, dumped Charles’ nude body, and drove on to Huntington Beach, seeking other victims.
A little while later, they began talking to James McCabe, 12, who said he was on his way to Disneyland. They invited James into the van. While Bonin had sex with him, the co-defendant, Miley, drove. Later, the two men held the victim down, beat him, strangled him with his shirt, and crushed his neck with a jack handle. After taking money out of James’ wallet, the defendants left his body next to a dumpster in the City of Walnut, where it was found Feb. 6.
On March 14, 1980, Ronald Gatlin, 19, was picked up by the defendant in Van Nuys at about 8:30 p.m. Ronald’s nude body was found the next day in Duarte, near the juncture of the 210 and 605 freeways. He had been sodomized and strangled with a ligature. There were wounds to the neck and right ear that apparently had been made by an ice pick and the body showed signs of beating.
Sometime on or after March 20, 1980, the defendant William Bonin and co-defendant William Pugh picked up Harry Todd Turner, 14, in Hollywood. Harry’s nude body was found the morning of March 25 in an alley behind a Los Angeles business. He had been beaten, sodomized, and strangled by ligature.
On April 10, 1980, Steven Wood, 16, was picked up by the defendant at about 12:15 p.m. in Los Angeles. Steven’s nude body was found the next morning in an alley behind an industrial complex near the Pacific Coast Highway and Long Beach Freeway. He, too, had been beaten, sodomized and strangled by ligature.
On April 29, 1980, at 9:15 p.m., the defendant William Bonin and co-defendant Butts accosted Darin Lee Kendrick, 19, in the parking lot of a supermarket in Stanton. Darin had been collecting shopping carts and was lured into the van on a pretext of being sold some drugs. His nude body was found the next morning in an industrial park in Carson near the Artesia Freeway. In addition to being sodomized and strangled by ligature, Darin apparently was forced to ingest chloral hydrate which left him with caustic chemical burns on his mouth, chin, chest and stomach. Darin also had an ice pick through his right ear that caused a fatal wound to the upper cervical spinal cord.
On June 2, 1980, at about 5:40 p.m., the defendant William Bonin and co-defendant James Munro were driving a van in Downey when they picked up a hitchhiker, Steven Jay Wells, 18. Initially, Steven agreed to have sex with the defendant. Later, he allowed himself to be tied up, expecting to be paid for having sex with a friend of the defendant’s. The defendant and co-defendant tied Steven up, took his money, beat him, then strangled him with his T-shirt. They placed Steven’s body in a cardboard box and carried it out to the van. At about 8 p.m., they drove to the residence of co-defendant Butts who told them to take the body and “drop it off somewhere.” Co-defendant Munro and the defendant then drove to Huntington Beach where they left Steven’s nude body at the rear of a closed gas station, where it was found June 3.
The defendant was apprehended after co-defendant Pugh, 17, was arrested on auto theft charges on May 29, 1980. He told detectives that he had accepted a ride home from a party with the defendant, who had talked about killing young boys. The defendant was placed under surveillance beginning June 2, 1980.
On June 11, 1980, his van was followed to Hollywood. He was observed talking to five different young men standing on street corners before 15-year-old Harold T. entered his van. The defendant parked, with Harold still inside, in a vacant lot on Santa Monica Boulevard. Despite Harold’s resistance, the defendant orally copulated him. Shortly thereafter, the defendant was apprehended in the act of raping and sodomizing Harold. The police found a length of white nylon cord and three knives in the van.
(Information for this summary was compiled from the probation officer’s report and/or other court documents from the defendant’s file.)
During the same time period as the Los Angeles murders, defendant Bonin and two co-defendants murdered four other young men in Orange County.
On December 2, 1979, the body of Dennis Frank Fox, 17, was found along Ortego Highway about five miles east of the San Diego Freeway. On March 22, 1980, the bodies of Russell Rugh, 15, and Glenn Barker, 14, were found a few miles farther east along the same road. On May 18, 1980, the body of Lawrence Sharp, 17, was found in a trash bin behind a service station in Westminster.
The four victims were all hitchhikers whom the defendant had picked up in his van, and then killed by strangulation. The defendant was assisted in most or all the crimes by two other men, co-defendants Miley and Munro. All of the victims’ bodies showed signs of physical beating and the cause of death of each victim was strangulation by ligature. Marks on the body of at least one of the victims indicated that a bar or other similar object had been placed between the ligature and the neck and then twisted, to effect greater compression. Other marks also indicated that the hands and feet of all the victims had been bound, or handcuffed, and the victims had been sodomized.
Defendant Bonin was convicted of these four Orange County murders while already on Death Row for the 10 others he committed in Los Angeles County.
According to court documents Jeffrey Sloan would fatally shoot Jason Sloan, age nine, Timothy Sloan, age 18, Judith Sloan, age 38 and Paul Sloan, age 41. Jeffrey would tell police his father Paul was abusive
Jeffrey Sloan would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Jeffrey Sloan would be executed by lethal injection on February 21 1996
Jeffrey Sloan Photos
Jeffrey Sloan Case
A man was executed by injection early today for shooting his 9-year-old brother to death after an argument with his family over bad checks.
Jeffery Sloan, 29, was also thought to have killed his parents and 18-year-old brother in the 1985 shooting at their home in Lathrop, 30 miles from Kansas City. But he was charged only in his younger brother’s murder.
I know I’m going to a better place,” Mr. Sloan said in his final statement.
In his appeals, Mr. Sloan contended that his original lawyer had done a poor job because the lawyer was involved in laundering drug money, for which he later was convicted. The lawyer did not call any witnesses at the trial, Mr. Sloan said.
Jeffrey. Sloan contended that his mother, Judith, had told him to kill his father, Paul, because he was abusive, that his brother Timothy should die because he was like his father, and that his younger brother, Jason, should die to keep him from growing up with the knowledge that his father was abusive.
According to court documents Leo Jenkins would rob a pawn shop and in the process would shoot and kill a sister and brother who were working: Mark Kelley and Kara Kelley Voss
Leo Jenkins would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Leo Jenkins would be executed by lethal injection on February 9 1996
Leo Jenkins Photos
Leo Jenkins Case
Linda Kelley awakened Friday morning with a grim hope — that she might watch the killer of her children die by suppertime.
Nothing has seemed right, or quite real, to Kelley and her family since that afternoon in August 1988 when Leo Jenkins sauntered into the Golden Nuggett pawnshop in Houston, leveled a .22-caliber pistol at the two young people working there, and ended the lives of Kara Kelley Voss, a newlywed who was just 20, and Mark Kelley, 26, whose second child was four weeks old.
In that flash of unthinking violence, everything Linda Kelley had ever known or believed in was shattered, replaced with a deep, howling pain that will never go away.
But at 6:22 p.m. Friday, Kelley watched with a steady gaze, anger and hate still pounding in her heart, as a lethal dose was pumped into Jenkins’s veins. Surrounded by her husband, her remaining daughter, her daughter-in-law, and her husband’s 90-year-old mother, Kelley stared coldly at the gurney where Jenkins lay, thinking of everything he had ruined, everything she had lost. It was so easy, she said afterward, to look on as he died
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but this was not difficult at all. I’m glad it’s over and I’m glad it’s done, and I’m glad he’s off this earth. . . . I have peace at heart.”
The Kelleys were the first family in Texas to be permitted to watch the execution of the murderer of their loved ones, but their experience reflects a growing trend in the arena of victims’ rights and, death-penalty opponents fear, a disturbing focus on up-close vengeance.
In the past few years, seven of the 38 states that allow the death penalty, including Virginia, have agreed to permit victims’ families to witness the state’s final action on their behalf. Other states also are considering policy changes, propelled by advocates who argue the families of murder victims have as much right to be present at the last moment as the friends and relatives of the dying inmate
EXECUTION IN TEXAS: A SATISFYING END FOR FAMILY OF TWO VICTIMS By Sue Anne Pressley February 11, 1996
Linda Kelley awakened Friday morning with a grim hope — that she might watch the killer of her children die by suppertime.
Nothing has seemed right, or quite real, to Kelley and her family since that afternoon in August 1988 when Leo Jenkins sauntered into the Golden Nuggett pawnshop in Houston, leveled a .22-caliber pistol at the two young people working there, and ended the lives of Kara Kelley Voss, a newlywed who was just 20, and Mark Kelley, 26, whose second child was four weeks old.
In that flash of unthinking violence, everything Linda Kelley had ever known or believed in was shattered, replaced with a deep, howling pain that will never go away.
But at 6:22 p.m. Friday, Kelley watched with a steady gaze, anger and hate still pounding in her heart, as a lethal dose was pumped into Jenkins’s veins. Surrounded by her husband, her remaining daughter, her daughter-in-law, and her husband’s 90-year-old mother, Kelley stared coldly at the gurney where Jenkins lay, thinking of everything he had ruined, everything she had lost. It was so easy, she said afterward, to look on as he died.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but this was not difficult at all. I’m glad it’s over and I’m glad it’s done, and I’m glad he’s off this earth. . . . I have peace at heart.”
The Kelleys were the first family in Texas to be permitted to watch the execution of the murderer of their loved ones, but their experience reflects a growing trend in the arena of victims’ rights and, death-penalty opponents fear, a disturbing focus on up-close vengeance.
In the past few years, seven of the 38 states that allow the death penalty, including Virginia, have agreed to permit victims’ families to witness the state’s final action on their behalf. Other states also are considering policy changes, propelled by advocates who argue the families of murder victims have as much right to be present at the last moment as the friends and relatives of the dying inmate.
“This is basically what the death penalty has come down to,” said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. “Having the death penalty as a deterrent has not seemed to work. There doesn’t seem to be the need to protect society to have the death penalty — prisons can do that. One of the remaining justifications is vengeance, almost like something for the family of the victim, or the victims themselves in a way.
“It’s sort of a symbolic gesture,” he said, “but what they will see is not so much something that gives them retribution, not anything like what they suffered. They won’t see a violent death. What they will see is another family in grief over their own son, or brother, or husband.”
But to Linda Kelley’s way of thinking, Dieter was wrong. What she saw, she said, was immensely satisfying, knowing Leo Jenkins would never enjoy a meal again, or watch a television program, or do any of the simple things her two children had been denied
A recent past leader of the Parents of Murdered Children group in Houston, she had testified before the state legislature to allow the change and, when that effort failed, worked to persuade the Texas Criminal Justice Board to broaden its policies — never realizing her family would be the first to exercise the option.
In that sense, Jenkins assisted her; by giving up his appeals, he chose to die years before his last execution date would have been set.
“I have to give the man credit — he made the decision not to drag it out any longer and I’m thankful he was willing to do this,” said Kelley, 55. “But I will never forgive him for what he did. Our life is over. We are not, and never will be, the same people. My husband and I are not living, we’re just existing. We don’t care whether we live or die.
By society’s measure, Leo Jenkins was a loser.
When he and an accomplice walked into the Kelley family pawnshop Aug. 29, 1988, intending to rob the business to feed a bad drug habit, he already had served time for burglary and theft, and had been released only a few months earlier from his latest round in prison. Three days after the Golden Nuggett murders, he was arrested, and confessed to the killings.
In time, on Texas’s death row, Jenkins followed the well-worn path to religious redemption and, in his last statement from his gurney on Friday, told onlookers that “I believe Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” He also said he was sorry for “the loss of the Kelleys, but my death won’t bring them back. I believe that the state of Texas is making a mistake tonight. Tell my family I love them.” He paused, then said, “I’m ready.”
Jenkins’s sister, Deborah LeMaster, said he was troubled that the Kelley family was going to watch him die. He could not understand, she said, what it would accomplish.
“He said that he had done a very bad wrong, and that he could never make it right except by doing what he was doing,” said LeMaster, 43, in a telephone interview from her Dallison, W.Va., home. Because of childhood adoptions, she had located her brother for the first time only three years ago, shocked to find he was imprisoned on death row. They were never to meet in person.
“He thought, he hoped, that his death would be enough to satisfy the Kelleys, so they could go on with their lives,” she said. “But he thought it was low, that the warden would let them watch.”
But that was what kept the Kelleys going sometimes, knowing that someday Leo Ernest Jenkins Jr., 38 — a red-haired man with a strong physique and numerous tattoos, the source of their numbing grief — would be wheeled into the death chamber. And that perhaps they, too, would be there someday as he left the world
In the meantime, Linda Kelley has drifted through a haze of grief. She visits her children’s graves obsessively, talking to them, putting balloons out for their birthdays, tracing her fingers around the names engraved on their tombstones, and remembering how happy she was to be pregnant with them, long ago, cheerfully picking out the names with her husband.
“I keep thinking, My God, these are my babies. Oh, Mark. Oh, Kara. I’m supposed to die first.’ “
When it was over Friday, the Kelley family trooped stoically out of the building that holds the death chamber, arm-in-arm, dry-eyed, 90-year-old Angeline Kelley supported by Mark and Kara’s sister, Robin. They had been nervous before the execution — maybe he would back out at the last minute, maybe this would never happen.
Earlier in the week, they had toured the death room, and considered the sight of Jenkins on the stretcher beyond the glass wall and, now, something like relief shone on their faces
Linda Kelley had no sorrow for the murderer, she said. Even to the last, she thought his attitude was bad — arrogant, the way he said the state of Texas was wrong to kill him. She wanted to see more remorse, more feeling.
She thought he was allowed to die with much more dignity than her children, who were shot in the heads like animals. She said she would encourage every family in her position to witness an execution.
“It is a chapter closed for us,” she said Friday. “When we go home, we still have to deal with the fact that Mark and Kara aren’t here, but I’m going to go to the cemetery tomorrow and I’m going to tell Mark and Kara that he’s gone and I’m glad he paid the price for what he did. I’m glad I watched it. I’m glad I was allowed to watch it. I don’t have the weight that I had when I went in there. Because your imagination runs wild if you don’t see something for yourself. I wouldn’t have known what had happened. . . . And I will be able to go to sleep tonight.”
But Linda Kelley is too wise, too well-versed in the complexities of grief, to think her pain will ever go away.
Today she did visit Mark and Kara’s grave and tell them this horrible man was dead. And then, after she neatened up their flowers and patted their tombstones and cried once more as if it all happened yesterday, she turned to her husband, Jim, and together, they went home — still trying to figure out how to survive the rest of their lives.
