Bill Benefiel was executed by the State of Indiana for the murder of Delores Wells
According to court documents Bill Benefiel would kidnap seventeen year old Alicia Elmore who was held captive for more than four months where she was repeatedly sexually assaulted
Alice Elmore who would eventually be rescued by police would tell them that Bill Benefiel also kidnapped Delores Wells and he would eventually put superglue up her nose and clamped it shut causing her death
Bill Benefiel would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Bill Benefiel would be executed by lethal injection on April 21 2005
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Bill Benefiel was executed on April 21 2005
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Marge Hagan said Wednesday night belonged to her daughter, Delores Wells. “Tonight was for Delores. She’s the one who paid the price, not us,” Hagan said.
Shortly after midnight Wednesday, in the death chamber of the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, officials administered a lethal injection to Wells’ killer, 48-year-old Terre Haute man Bill Benefiel. He died quietly at 12:35 a.m. Thursday, said Java Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Department of Correction. Benefiel, when asked if he had any last words, reportedly said, “No. Let’s get this over with. Let’s do it.”
Hagan, with her children along to help her cope, drove north Wednesday afternoon from Terre Haute to Michigan City. “I just wanted to be close,” Hagan said. Neither she nor members of her family were permitted to witness the execution. Hagan said she wanted to see it, but was not allowed. Indiana law allows the condemned inmate to pick up to 10 witnesses. No others, except for members of the execution team, are allowed to view the proceedings, said prison spokesman Barry Nothstine. Benefiel picked one witness, whom prison officials declined to name. The witness chose not to speak about the execution.
The family waited out the execution on the prison grounds, and were kept informed of the proceedings, Nothstine said. Hagan and her children, John Alkire, Anita Holland, Laurie Kindred and Jackie Hollinger, met with reporters after the execution at their Michigan City hotel.
Hollinger, with tears in her eyes, said she wanted to publicly remember her father – Wells’ stepfather, Al Hagan. He became ill several years ago, and died in 2002, voicing his regret that Benefiel would outlive him, Hollinger said. “I felt my dad was with us tonight,” she said.
Marge Hagan said she had no sympathy for Benefiel. “I’ll always hate him, but it won’t bring Delores back,” she said. Marge Hagan never spoke to Benefiel – never tried. “I never wanted to talk to him at all,” she said.
Benefiel kidnapped Wells in January 1987. He held her captive for 12 days, raping her repeatedly before using glue to seal her eyes and nostrils, stuffing toilet paper in her mouth and holding it in with tape. He took her into the woods outside Terre Haute, killed her and buried her. The cause of Wells’ death is listed as asphyxia.
Alicia Elmore, who provided key testimony at Benefiel’s trial, endured four months’ captivity and was repeatedly raped by him before he was arrested for killing Wells.
Around 7 p.m., demonstrators began to gather at the front gate of the prison, intent on voicing their protest of the death penalty. Under a thick, gray, overcast sky, the daylight faded away until their posters were lighted by the arc lights of the parking lot. The night was unseasonably cold, with a damp wind blowing off Lake Michigan less than a mile away from the prison.
Tom Mischler, a priest from Gary speaking for the Duneland Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said the execution represents a culture of vengeance. Benefiel suffered tragedies as a child that nobody tried to stop, he said, making it hard to determine who should be viewed as guilty. “The state really seems to have dropped the ball on some care that may have prevented some of this,” he said. “That’s the problem with the culture of vengeance. Do we blame the state?” He said while Benefiel’s actions are monstrous, the person who committed them wasn’t.
Benefiel had been diagnosed with a schizotypal personality disorder, which means the person experiences cognitive or perceptual distortions that appear very real to them. He was physically and emotionally abused as a child, and presented a plea of insanity at his trial. Wednesday, Benefiel declined an offer of religious consolation, Nothstine said.
While Hagan and her children waited inside the prison, they could hear the demonstrators’ drum beats. Demonstrators beat the drums as a symbolic protest against executions as society’s idea of justice. “I could never feel joy over somebody dying,” Hagan said, but added that the protesters should just stay away. “Until they’ve walked a mile in our shoes – lost a family member – they should just stay home,” she said.
Benefiel met with his sons earlier in April, Nothstine said, the first visit from family he had in some time. He met with his attorney on Wednesday. After visitation ended Wednesday, he took a shower, put on clean clothes and ate pizza, a sandwich, several cans of soda and four quarts of ice cream, Ahmed said. He was allowed to watch television. Shortly after midnight, Benefiel was placed on a gurney, secured to it, taken to the death chamber and administered deadly chemicals. He is the 12th Indiana prisoner executed by lethal injection, and the 87th Hoosier executed since 1897.
Hagan, flanked by her children in a hotel lobby in the early hours of Thursday morning, said she simply felt relief. “It’s been a long evening,” she said, her eyes red-rimmed from fatigue. “I’m relieved. I never thought the day would come, but it did.” Benefiel was sentenced to death on Nov. 3, 1988.
“I won’t dwell on him anymore like I used to,” she said. “I used to dream about him, about what I’d like to do to him.” Now, she said, she’ll try to forget him. “I’ll just go back home. Try to go on,” Hagan said. “I can put him out of my mind.”
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