Donald Whatley was sentenced to death by the State of Alabama for the murder of Pete Patel
According to court documents Donald Whatley and Pete Patel were seen leaving a bar together. Later that night Pete Patel was beaten and run over
Donald Whatley would flee to Texas where he would murder Shelia Overstreet who was trying to help him
Donald Whatley would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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Donald Whatley is incarcerated at Holman Prison
Donald Whatley Case
he State’s evidence tended to show the following: On the morning of December 29, 2003, Kenneth McCall, an employee of Austal Crosby Joint Venture, went to his work site under a bridge in Mobile and discovered the victim’s body lying on the ground near the entrance gate to the work site. He telephoned emergency 911. The state medical examiner, Dr. Kathleen Enstice, testified that Patel died of “multiple traumatic injuries” that included numerous injuries to his head, neck, sternum, and shoulder. Dr. Enstice testified that the injuries to his face were consistent with a beating, that the injury to his neck was consistent with strangulation, and that the injuries to his upper body were consistent with having been run over by a vehicle. Patel’s pants, Dr. Enstice said, were around his neck. Cigarette butts were found near the victim’s body. DNA testing on one of the cigarettes matched Whatley’s DNA.
Testimony also established that Patel had been at Gabriel’s, a bar in downtown Mobile, on the evening of December 28, 2003, with another male. Joseph Jones testified that he saw Patel drive up to Gabriel’s and approach Whatley, who had been standing outside the bar. The two then went inside the bar together. On January 4, 2004, Patel’s vehicle was discovered partially submerged in a large mud hole off Theodore Dawes Road. The vehicle had been set on fire. Sam Stevens of the Mobile Fire Department testified that he found an ignitable liquid behind the driver’s seat in the vehicle. Sharee Wells of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences testified that the substance on the floor of the vehicle was gasoline.
Office Steve Thrower, an investigator with the district attorney’s office in Beaumont, Texas, testified that on August 4, 2006, Whatley was at the police station in Texas when Whatley told him that he had committed a murder in Mobile, Alabama, and wanted to confess. Office Thrower read the following statement Whatley made to him:
“I know I don’t have to talk to anyone about this and no one from the police department or from the [district attorney’s] office is making me do this. I fully understand that Alabama can seek the death penalty against me but the Lord had put it on my heart to tell what I did so I’m going to tell it.
“Back in 2003 around December 29th I killed a man by the name of Pete Patel. I’m not sure what the proper spelling of his name is and I think Pete was just a nickname. But he was a man of Indian descent that owned a small motel by the name of the Budget Inn in Mobile, Alabama. On the night the murder happened, I had gone to a local gay bar there in Mobile by the name of Gabriel’s to look for someone to rob. It was there that I first met Pete. We made small talk and he hit on me for sex. I agreed to go with him and we left the bar in his car. I don’t remember what time it was but it was pretty late. To the best of my knowledge I think his car was a light green Honda. Pete was driving when we left the bar and we went to the Africatown Cochran Bridge. When we got there we got out of the car and sat on the hood. I smoked a cigarette. We were talking and he put his hand on my leg. That just freaked me out so I hit him with my fist. It knocked him down so I got up on top of him and hit him a couple of more times and then I started choking him. I thought at that point he was dead. So I took his pants off of him but he started moaning. When he did that I jumped in his car and ran over his head a couple of times. The driver’s side front tire was the tire that ran over him. I then took off in his car. I stopped about a quarter to three-eighths of a mile down the road and went through his pants. I got a couple of hundred dollars out of his wallet and threw his pants out. I took off again but just a short distance down the road I threw his wallet out. I went and bought some crack with the money I got. I then drove his car to Theodore Alabama and burned it. I started the fire with some gas I bought at a convenience store. The police never talked to me about the crime until 2005 when my DNA connected me to the crime scene. I don’t think they had enough to charge me because I was never charged and I never admitted anything to them. I would have never, if I had not been all messed up on alcohol. I’m very sorry for what I did to this man. I hope that by my confessing to what I have done will ease the pain of some of his family.”
(R. 1057–60.)
The jury convicted Donald Whatley of murdering Patel during the course of a robbery. A separate penalty phase hearing was held. At the sentencing hearing, Donald Whatley asserted that he should be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the following reasons: since he murdered Patel he had turned his life over to Christ; he grew up in a dysfunctional family marked by violence and abuse; he had a history of poly-substance abuse; he was depressed; and his substance abuse had affected his actions on the night of the murder. The jury, by a vote of 10 to 2, recommended that Whatley be sentenced to death. After the jury returned its verdict,
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