Dana Edmonds was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of John Elliott
According to court documents Dana Edmonds would rob a grocery store and in the process of the armed robbery would murder the owner John Elliott
Dana Edmonds would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Dana Edmonds would be executed by lethal injection on January 24 1995
Dana Edmonds Photos
Dana Edmonds Case
Convicted killer Dana Ray Edmonds tonight became the first Virginia death-row inmate executed by lethal injection as the state opened a new chapter in its use of capital punishment.
Edmonds, 32, who murdered a grocery store owner 12 years ago by smashing a brick into his head and thrusting a knife into his throat, died quietly while strapped onto a heavy steel hospital table. He was pronounced dead by an attending doctor at 9:14 p.m., just 8 1/2 minutes after the last dose of chemicals began pumping into his arm.
“No one can take me from this earth, and I forgive everyone here,” Edmonds said as his final words.
Witnesses emerging from the death chamber at Greensville Correctional Center here near the North Carolina line said the execution was performed without complication and Edmonds did not appear to be in pain. “He blinked a couple of times {and} closed his eyes as if he was going to sleep,” said Jon Lewis, a radio reporter who watched from an adjoining room. “It just seemed very peaceful and dignified.”
Until tonight, Virginia had relied solely on the oak electric chair that was first installed at the state penitentiary in Richmond in 1908. Since then, it has put to death 259 men and one woman in the chair. Edmonds was the first offered the choice of lethal injection under a law that took effect Jan. 1. Because condemned prisoners nearly always choose that method in the 28 other states where it is an option, tonight could signal the retirement of Virginia’s electric chair.
Proponents of the method argue that it is a more humane means to carry out a grim but necessary task; critics complain that lethal injection simply tidies up an indefensible act.
Del. Phillip A. Hamilton (R-Newport News), the lawmaker who sponsored the new law, watched tonight’s execution and said it confirmed his decision. “One thing was very obvious to me — this was a less violent method,” Hamilton, who has witnessed an electrocution, said afterward
A handful of capital punishment opponents who gathered outside the prison tonight said the method wasn’t the issue. Joining hands in prayer for Edmonds at the appointed hour, they said they did not consider lethal injection any kinder. “It’s the killing of an individual, whether it’s hanging, a shotgun or whatever,” said Mary Allen, 59, who drove from Norfolk to protest the execution.
Edmonds’s execution broke with tradition in another way. For three decades, executions in Virginia have taken place at 11 p.m. or shortly thereafter. But Corrections Director Ronald J. Angelone moved the time to 9 p.m. to reduce the late-night waiting and overtime for his guards.
Edmonds, who spent his final day with two brothers, a brother-in-law, lawyers and members of the clergy, lost last-minute appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. George Allen today. He was brought into the death chamber at 8:42 p.m. and strapped to the gurney in front of a vinyl curtain shrouding the electric chair. Another curtain was drawn in front of him while a catheter was inserted into his arm. At 9 p.m., the first of three chemicals — sodium pentothal, Pavulon and potassium chloride — began flowing through the tube into his blood stream. The first put him to sleep, and the final two stopped his breathing and his heartbeat
Edmonds is the 25th man executed in Virginia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Only Texas and Florida have had more executions in that time.
Had it not been for the state’s conversion to lethal injection, Edmonds might have gone to his death with scant public notice. His case attracted little attention despite what his attorneys claimed was convincing evidence provided recently by new witnesses and lie-detector tests that Edmonds passed last fall. His situation was unusual, too, because a court ruling that he had inadequate representation at trial was brushed aside on technical grounds.
Edmonds was convicted of murdering John Elliott on July 22, 1983, while taking about $40 from the small grocery store in Danville. Edmonds, who is black, denied any robbery and insisted that he killed Elliott accidentally while defending himself after the white store owner drew a gun during a racially tinged dispute
