Arthur Rutherford was executed by the State of Florida for the murder of Stella Salamon
According to court documents Arthur Rutherford was working for Stella Salamon when he would beat the woman to death and put her body in a bathtub. Rutherford would forge her name on a check and have someone else cash it
Arthur Rutherford was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Arthur Rutherford was executed by lethal injection on October 18 2006
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When Was Arthur Rutherford Executed
Arthur Rutherford was executed on October 18 2006
Arthur Rutherford Case
A handyman convicted of murdering a Milton woman was executed Wednesday night, paving the way for Gainesville’s most notorious killer to face the same fate next week. Arthur Rutherford, 57, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. at Florida State Prison. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-minute petitions to stop the execution, including one arguing that newly released details about lethal injection deserved a court review.
Attorney Baya Harrison, who represents Gainesville student murderer Danny Rolling, is raising similar issues in that case. Harrison said the court’s rejection of the argument makes next Wednesday’s scheduled execution of Rolling more likely. “It’s not at all good for Rolling,” he said. “The issues that Rutherford raised are the issues that we also raised.”
Gainesville Citizens for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and other opponents to capital punishment held a vigil across from the prison in protest of the execution. Group member Bonnie Flassig said the focus should be on Rutherford, rather than the pending execution of Rolling. “There’s another man being killed,” she said.
On Wednesday morning, Rutherford had last visits with more than a dozen relatives. He ate a final meal of fried freshwater catfish, fried green tomatoes, fried eggplant, hush puppies and sweet tea. Rutherford declined to make a final statement at the execution. He was the 62nd inmate executed in Florida since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, and the second since a 17-month lull in executions caused in part by challenges to the lethal injection process.
He was sentenced to death for murdering 63-year-old Stella Salamon, a widow whose naked body was found submerged in her bathtub in 1985. A neighbor who found the body, Beverly Elkins, said the execution ended a long ordeal. “I think it’s about time,” she said. “It was such a horrible, premeditated crime.”
Rutherford had maintained his innocence, claiming a witness in the case had confessed to the crime. The courts had continuously rejected that claim, along with his challenges to the lethal injection process as cruel and unusual punishment. The latest challenge revolved around the Florida Department of Corrections’ adoption of a document in August laying out the execution process. The document included new details about the amounts of drugs injected, the drug and alcohol testing of executioners and a cutdown procedure when a vein can’t be located. The department didn’t publicly release the document until this week, leading Rutherford’s attorneys to ask for a stay of execution to review it. The Florida Supreme Court rejected that argument Tuesday and the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit Wednesday.
The nation’s highest court turned down four separate petitions to halt the execution. Only Justice John Paul Stevens voted to grant a stay. Linda McDermott, one of Rutherford’s attorneys, had asserted the document showed the state made changes to the execution process that necessitated a review. But she said the last-minute release of the document made delaying the execution more difficult. “It was too close to the execution for anyone to want to stop it,” she said.
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