Jeffrey Daugherty was executed by the State of Florida for five murders
According to court documents Jeffrey Daugherty and two others were on a road trip and on the way Jeffrey would murder four women and one man. Some of the murders were committed during robberies and others were done just for the thrill of the kill
Jeffrey Daugherty would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Jeffrey Daugherty would be executed by the way of the electric chair on November 7 1988
Jeffrey Daugherty FAQ
When was Jeffrey Daugherty executed
Jeffrey Daugherty was executed on November 7 1988
How was Jeffrey Daugherty executed
Jeffrey Daugherty was executed by way of the electric chair
Jeffrey Daugherty Case
A man convicted of killing four women went to Florida’s electric chair Monday criticizing the legal system that condemned him, and was put to death minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.
″I hope with all my heart I will be the last sacrificial lamb of a system that is not just, and all these people know it is not just,″ Jeffrey Joseph Daugherty said in a six-minute statement before his execution.
″Let’s hope there are not many more that have to be sacrificed. The executions serve no purpose,″ he said.
Daugherty, 33, was the 19th person executed in the oaken chair at Florida State Prison and the 103rd put to death in the nation since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Only one state, Texas, has had more executions than Florida.
A handful of protesters opposing capital punishment, including actress Margot Kidder, as well as pro-execution group, stood watch outside the prison as Daugherty died just after 5 p.m. EST.
Daugherty refused his last meal about 3 p.m., prior to having his right leg and head shaved to make better contact with the metal bands that conduct the current.
In the death chamber, Daugherty thanked his priest and said he hoped family members who had looked up to him for the wrong reasons would now see his true strength. ″It is my time to go and I am ready to go home,″ he said.
A corrections official then strapped a leather muzzle across Daugherty’s face and attached a leather skull cap and a black mask before connecting the electric cables.
Then a black-hooded executioner standing behind a concrete wall sent 2,000 volts and 14 amps of current into Daugherty’s body. He was pronounced dead at 5:16 p.m.
Outside the prison, Ms. Kidder said the death penalty was racially and economically biased, and charged that the execution was politically motivated.
″This is the night before the election. They are using people’s lives for political gain and that’s the obscenity,″ the actress said.
Just before a lower court stay ran out at 5 p.m., the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to turn down an emergency request aimed at sparing the life of Daugherty, who prosecutors said committed four murders during a three-week spree while he, his girlfriend and his uncle traveled from Michigan to Florida.
Justices William J. Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens voted to spare Daugherty.
Earlier Monday, Daugherty received a surprise visit from his father, also named Jeffrey Daugherty, who arrived from Michigan.
He also visited with his ex-wife and two young children, said Bob Macmaster, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections. The Rev. Bob Baker, a Roman Catholic priest from Augustine, celebrated Mass for Daugherty, Macmaster said.
Daugherty was condemned for the March 1, 1976, killing of a hitchhiker, Lavonne Patricia Sailer. He shot her five times at close range after stealing her clothes, her watch and $12 hidden in her shoe.
He is under three life sentences for the 1976 slayings of Betty Campbell, part owner of Betty’s Pizzeria in Edgewater; Carmen Abrams, an employee of a small grocery in Hammock; and Elizabeth Shanks, a convenience store clerk in Hollidaysburg, Pa.
All three Florida killings were committed within a week, shortly after Daugherty, and his girlfriend, Bonnie Jean Heath, left Michigan.
In exchange for her testimony, Ms. Heath was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder in the killing of Ms. Campbell and drew a 25-year sentence.
The last inmate to die in Florida’s electric chair was Willie Jasper Darden, who died March 15 for the 1973 slaying of a Lakeland furniture store owner.
Daugherty was first scheduled to die in October 1987, but was granted a stay by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal. The appeals court later rejected his arguments, as did the Supreme Court. Last month Gov. Bob Martinez signed a second death warrant and Daugherty’s attorneys argued his jury had been impropertly instructed.