Darrell Ferguson was executed by the State of Ohio for three murders committed over two days
According to court documents once he was released from prison Darrell Ferguson entered a drug rehab facility and was given a two day pass. He would murder his uncle Thomas King and rob his home for money to buy drugs. The next day he would murder his former neighbors Arlie and Mae Fugate before robbing their home
Darrell Ferguson was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Darrell Ferguson was executed by lethal injection on August 8 2006
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When Was Darrell Ferguson Executed
Darrell Ferguson was executed on August 8 2006
Darrell Ferguson Case
A man who called Satan his lord and said he enjoyed killing three people was executed Tuesday, keeping his promise to show the family of his victims no remorse for stabbing and beating them and stomping on them with steel-toed boots.
Darrell Ferguson’s mother said he made up the Satan worshipping and the claim that he took pleasure in the killings to ensure he was executed. “He didn’t worship Satan. He used Satan to be put to death because he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison,” said Donna Davis, who watched the execution by injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. “He’s in God’s hands now, and Satan is running.” During the execution, he made a fist and extended his index and pinky fingers, which some people view as a sign of the devil. When asked about the symbol, Davis said she doesn’t know what it means.
Ferguson, 28, the youngest person put to death in Ohio since 1962, asked for the death penalty at sentencing and chose not to pursue appeals, which could have delayed his execution for years.
He was the second inmate executed using the state’s new lethal injection protocol, adopted after an execution in May was delayed when prison staff struggled to find a useable vein on that inmate, who asked them to find another way to kill him. Prison staff gave Ferguson’s veins more close examinations, and the guidelines called for two injection sites to be prepared and a new method of ensuring veins stay open.
Ferguson said nothing before he died to the witnesses for the victims. He taunted the victims’ family at his sentencing in 2003, saying that if released from prison, he would pick up where he left off. “I will never show any remorse, even on the day I die,” he said in court.
Ferguson’s mother said he told her and other family members on Monday that he was sorry. “He wasn’t going to say he was sorry to the victims’ family because he was afraid that it would stop his death,” Davis said.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated murder in the Christmas Day killing of Thomas King, 61, in 2001 and the deaths the next day of Arlie Fugate, 68, and his wife Mae, 69. King, was disabled and used crutches, Arlie Fugate had cancer and Mae Fugate took meals to wheelchair-bound neighbors. The victims let Ferguson into their homes in Dayton because they knew him. Ferguson’s mother had been married to King’s brother, and Ferguson’s family had once lived near the Fugates. Ferguson committed the murders after getting a two-day pass Dec. 21, 2001, to leave a Cincinnati drug treatment program he had been ordered to attend following a burglary conviction.
Ferguson, who grew up in Dayton, frequently wandered the streets and spent nights in warehouses and alleys. He said at age 9 he began huffing – inhaling chemical vapors to achieve a feeling of euphoria. He started drinking at 15 and using crack cocaine at 18. Davis said her son was mentally ill. A defense psychiatrist who reviewed Ferguson’s medical history reported to the trial court that he had been treated for several psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder. “Gov. Bob Taft … had a mentally ill person put to death, murdered,” Davis said.
Ferguson’s trial attorney Victor Hodge said IQ tests showed Ferguson was borderline mentally retarded. But he refused to cooperate with further evaluations recommended by his attorneys, Hodge said. Kim Norris, spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, said Ferguson was found to be competent in evaluations ordered by the court. Ferguson did not ask Taft for clemency, which the governor said Monday he would not grant.
Ferguson, whose arms were tattooed, wore black-rimmed glasses and looked to the ceiling when he told his mother and father he loved them just before he was injected. He then turned toward the glass separating him from witnesses. Davis, who sat between Ferguson’s father and a stepfather, held the men’s hands. As he died, all three cried and Davis leaned toward the glass and sobbed. “No more chains, baby. No more handcuffs,” she said. “It’s done.”
When the curtain covering the window to the death chamber was pulled closed, Ferguson’s mother said, “Satan, you aren’t as strong as you thought you were. All you did was make people suffer as you like to do. But you didn’t get him, you didn’t get him. He had the power to change.” Six witnesses for the victims – five relatives and a friend of the King family – held hands and were quiet throughout the execution.
Ferguson was the fourth inmate executed in Ohio this year, the 23rd since the state resumed executions in 1999. Adremy Dennis, also 28, was about two months older than Ferguson when he was executed in 2004
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/15226857.htm
