Ernest Basden was executed by the State of North Carolina for the murder of Billy White
According to court documents Ernest Basden was paid by his nephew and Billy White wife to murder the victim. Billy White was lured to a remote location where he would be fatally shot by Ernest.
Ernest Basden would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Ernest Basden would be executed by lethal injection on December 6 2002
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When Was Ernest Basden Executed
Ernest Basden was executed on December 6 2002
Ernest Basden Case
man hired to kill an insurance agent, and who later found religion and led services on death row, was executed by injection early Friday. Ernest Basden, who was recruited to shoot Billy White of Kinston a decade ago, was pronounced dead at 2:19 a.m. at Central Prison.
Basden was put to death about seven hours after Gov. Mike Easley denied his request for clemency, despite pleas earlier this week from relatives and defense lawyers for mercy.
The victim’s son said the execution would help his family close a sad chapter in their lives. Basden as recruited to kill White, shooting him twice with a single-shot shotgun, by White’s wife, Sylvia. “It’s been a hard, long time in the White family,” said son Stephen White of Columbia, S.C. Basden’s sister, who watched him die along with her brother and three members of the White family, said simply that her brother “went with courage and dignity.”
Investigators were aided by Basden after he confessed to the Jan. 20, 1992, slaying. He told them where to find the gun, which had been cut into pieces, buried in concrete and thrown into the Trent River. Basden has been a good prisoner with no disciplinary infractions since coming to death row. His family said the slaying occurred because Basden was depressed and using drugs and alcohol, a period one called a “darker side of life.”
In his last statement, Basden reiterated his guilt and asked forgiveness. “I killed Billy White. I’m sorry for it. And I pray that his family will come to forgive me and let time heal their wounds. And that’s all we can do,” he said.
Just before he was injected, Basden kept his eyes closed as he was rolled out on a gurney in front of his family and other witnesses. His brother blew him a kiss while White’s relatives sat quietly in the death chamber holding hands. “What created the void in his life was losing his mother at age nine or 10,” said his brother Gerry Basden, a retired Kinston fire marshal who watched the execution.
Authorities said White’s wife paid to have her husband murdered. Basden and Linwood Taylor lured White to a deserted Jones County logging road, telling him that someone else wanted to buy a large insurance policy. Taylor and Sylvia White also were convicted in the case and are serving life sentences. Prosecutors said the case was handled properly and Basden’s conviction came largely because he confessed.
Defense lawyers said he was under the influence of his nephew, who gave Basden drugs and alcohol. They said Basden was depressed and that his sentence was harsher than those of his accomplices. Six jurors signed statements that they would have opted for life without parole if that sentence had been available. Such a sentence has since been approved by the Legislature in first-degree murder cases.
Basden was the 22nd criminal executed in North Carolina since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. His execution was the first this year in the state; another is scheduled Tuesday at 2 a.m. for Desmond Carter, who killed an elderly neighbor who refused to give him money to buy drugs.
Carter’s brother, Tyrone Wallace of Holyoke, Mass., held a candle and stood with about a dozen death protesters outside Central Prison. He said he was there because he opposed capital punishment and he wanted to let the Basden family “know they’re not alone.”
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/4679441.htm
