Keith Zettlemoyer was executed by the State of Pennsylvania for the murder of Charles DeVetsco
According to court documents Keith Zettlemoyer was set to be tried for armed robbery and his friend Charles DeVetsco was set to testify against him. Zettlemoyer and an accomplice would kidnap Charles DeVetsco who was handcuffed and later fatally shot
Keith Zettlemoyer would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Keith Zettlemoyer would be executed by lethal injection on May 2 1995
Keith Zettlemoyer Photos
Keith Zettlemoyer Case
A man who begged the courts to let him die because “brain disease” made his life in prison hell was executed Tuesday, becoming the first inmate put to death in Pennsylvania in 33 years.
The inmate, Keith Zettlemoyer, was declared dead at Rockview State Prison at 10:25 P.M., about 10 minutes after drugs began dripping into each arm through intravenous tubes.
The execution took place after the state and United States Supreme Courts turned down 11th-hour appeals.
Mr. Zettlemoyer was convicted of the 1980 murder of Charles DeVetsco, a friend who planned to testify against him in a robbery trial. After 14 years of appeals, Mr. Zettlemoyer, 39, recently fired his lawyers and dropped his efforts to live
“I see my execution as an end of suffering to my imprisonment — a blessed, merciful release from all these health symptoms that I’m constantly suffering with,” he testified on Saturday in Federal District Court.
Doctors said Mr. Zettlemoyer suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. He complained in court of an unspecified “brain disease,” though doctors said they could find nothing physically wrong. The doctors did not specify a cause or possible origin of the stress disorder.
Lawyers for the Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Defender Organization argued that Mr. Zettlemoyer was not mentally competent to decide his own fate.
Three psychiatrists testified that Mr. Zettlemoyer was sane.
“I’m not crazy,” Mr. Zettlemoyer said. “I’m not loony. I understand perfectly what’s going on with the execution and everything.”
The last inmate to be executed in Pennsylvania was Elmo Smith, in 1962. Since the United States Supreme Court allowed states to resume the death penalty in 1976, Pennsylvania has scheduled 34 executions
Keith Zettlemoyer had twice previously been scheduled to die. He received one stay from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and anone from former Gov. Dick Thornburgh.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Monday rejected a motion to block the execution. Three appeals judges agreed with a lower court ruling that Mr. Zettlemoyer “knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily opted to proceed with his execution.”
Since the United States Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976, 275 people have been put to death around the country.
