Joseph O’Dell Executed For Helen Schartner Murder

Joseph O’Dell was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Helen Schartner

According to court documents Joseph O’Dell would attack Helen Schartner outside of a Virginia nightclub. The woman would be sexually assaulted and beaten to death

Joseph O’Dell would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Joseph O’Dell would be executed by lethal injection on July 23 1997

Joseph O’Dell Photos

Joseph O’Dell Case

A death row inmate whose cause was championed by the Pope, Mother Teresa and the Italian Government was married in prison today and was then executed by injection a few hours later for a 1985 rape and murder he said he did not commit.

The inmate, Joseph Roger O’Dell 3d, 54, died by injection at 9:16 P.M. after the United States Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal.

Earlier in the day, Gov. George F. Allen rejected a plea for clemency, and on Tuesday a Federal appeals court refused to order newer, more sophisticated DNA tests of semen taken from the victim, Helen Schartner. Mr. O’Dell’s lawyers had argued that the tests could prove their client’s innocence.

Mr. O’Dell also argued that he should have been allowed to tell the jurors at the sentencing part of his trial in 1986 that if they did not give him the death penalty, he would have to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1994 that juries in capital cases must sometimes be told whether defendants have no chance of parole. But last month, the Court said that was not retroactive and did not cover Mr. O’Dell.

Mr. O’Dell’s case has gotten extraordinary attention in Italy, where opposition to capital punishment runs high and where Lori Urs, the Boston University law student whom Mr. O’Dell married today in a cell block next to the death chamber, was in constant touch with reporters.

A death row chaplain officiated as Mr. O’Dell and Ms. Urs exchanged vows through the bars of his cell. Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote ”Dead Man Walking,” and prison guards served as official witnesses. For security reasons, the newlyweds were not permitted to touch.

Saying Mr. O’Dell’s guilt had been firmly established, Governor Allen declared that his decision on clemency would not be influenced by pressure from Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II and the Italian Government.

At Mr. O’Dell’s trial, prosecutors showed that the wounds on Mrs. Schartner’s head matched the shape of a pellet gun owned by Mr. O’Dell. Semen on her body matched Mr. O’Dell’s blood and enzyme types, and hairs found in his car matched hers.

Gail Lee, Mrs. Schartner’s sister, said the international support for Mr. O’Dell left her family frustrated.

”We’re all very fragile at this point,” Ms. Lee said. ”It’s just like the Italians hate us. They in essence have said to my family, ‘You are worthless. Helen’s life didn’t matter.’ ”

In an argument to the Supreme Court today, Mr. O’Dell’s lawyers asked that the execution be barred because of Mr. O’Dell’s claim that another man, David Mark Pruett, had killed Mrs. Schartner.

The Virginia Attorney General, Richard Cullen, responded that Mr. Pruett could not have committed the crime because his blood type was AB, while semen taken from the victim contained type A blood.

Joseph O’Dell has type A blood, Mr. Cullen said, adding, ”Thus O’Dell’s longstanding claim that Pruett was the real killer is simply biologically impossible.”

Mr. Pruett was executed for stabbing a woman to death in 1985