Stanley Hall was executed by the State of Missouri for the murder of Barbara Jo Wood
According to court documents Stanley Hall would carjack a vehicle driven by Barbara Jo Wood. He would direct her to a bridge where he would throw her off the seventy five foot bridge causing her death. Stanley Hall would be arrested minutes after the murder
Stanley Hall would be convicted and sentenced to death
Stanley Hall would be executed by lethal injection on March 16 2005
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When Was Stanley Hall Executed
Stanley Hall was executed on March 16 2005
Stanley Hall Case
Eleven years after he threw a woman to her death in the icy Mississippi River, Stanley L. Hall of St. Louis was executed by injection.
Hall, 37, was pronounced dead at 12:06 a.m. in the Potosi Correctional Center for the murder of Barbara Jo Wood of south St. Louis County on Jan. 14, 1994. He and an accomplice had kidnapped her from the South County Shopping Center because they planned to use her car in a drive-by shooting. Hall admitted that he threw the struggling Wood from the McKinley Bridge. The accomplice was never charged.
“I’d like them to know I’m sorry, seriously sorry,” Hall said late Tuesday night, in his final statement to the Wood family. Eight of Wood’s relatives, including her mother, Phyllis Velcheck, 81, witnessed the execution.
Hall was the first person put to death in Missouri since October 2003. Last fall, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon and several prosecutors criticized the Missouri Supreme Court for not setting execution dates for six murderers, including Hall.
Missouri has executed 62 people since 1989, when it resumed carrying out the penalty under current Supreme Court rules. Missouri executed a modern-era record nine in 1999 and six in 2002 before the slowdown that drew criticism.
Hall had a last meal of T-bone steak, shrimp and french fries before learning that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday. Gov. Matt Blunt sealed his fate one hour later by refusing to reduce the sentence.
“It is undisputed that Stanley Hall killed Barbara Jo Wood,” Blunt said in a statement. “I hope this action brings (her family) the closure they deserve and I hope God will have mercy on Stanley Hall’s soul.” Nelson L. Mitten, Hall’s lawyer, told the courts he recently uncovered new evidence of Hall’s mental retardation that would make him ineligible for the death penalty. “I think it’s unfortunate that the courts have not recognized Mr. Hall’s mental retardation and taken appropriate action to see that this execution is halted,” Mitten said.
Hall’s last hope had been gubernatorial clemency. “So now there is going to be another killing,” said Margaret Phillips of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. Opponents of capital punishment held vigils in St. Louis and other cities, and gathered outside the prison fence. Mark Velcheck of Florissant, one of Wood’s brothers, said earlier Tuesday he was relieved that the sentence would be carried out. “I’m glad for Barbara that this person will pay the price,” said Velcheck, a witness. “You hate to say you want somebody to die, but this guy deserves it.”
Reached by telephone shortly before the Supreme Court ruled, Hall said he hoped for a reprieve but was prepared to accept death. He said he converted to Islam seven years ago. “I am not ready to go, but I am so very prepared,” Hall said. “I’m still keeping faith and hope alive. I want (Wood’s) family to know how so very sorry I am for being involved in what I was involved in. If I had a gun, I’d shoot myself if it would bring her back.”
Wood, a mother of two grown sons, worked for a title insurance company in Clayton. She had gone to the mall to report for her part-time job at Dillard’s. Hall wanted a car to shoot a man who had wounded one of his cousins a month earlier. At the time, Hall was on parole for wounding a 4-year-old girl while he was chasing and shooting at a man in St. Louis in 1987.
Mitten said he had uncovered a report showing that the Special School District of St. Louis County had listed Hall’s IQ at 57 when he was seven. The claim of “new evidence” was important because courts rarely consider appeals based upon information they had heard before. But Nixon argued that Hall’s own defense psychologist testified in 1996 that Hall was not mentally retarded. On Monday, the federal appeals court said Mitten failed to show that the old IQ report “could not have been discovered previously .