Kenneth Stewart was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of his wife and infant son
According to court documents Kenneth Stewart and his wife was going through a separation and was upset that he was restricted to access to his five month old son. Stewart would go to the home and fatally shoot his wife Cynthia and his son Jonathan
Kenneth Stewart would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Kenneth Stewart would be executed by way of the electric chair on September 23 1998
Kenneth Stewart Photos
Kenneth Stewart Case
Kenneth M. Stewart Jr., who shot and killed his wife and infant son, became the first person to be executed in Virginia’s electric chair tonight since 1994.
The electrocution went according to plan, corrections officials said, and Stewart, 44, a recovering alcoholic who described himself as a born-again Christian, was pronounced dead at 9:11 p.m. after two series of shocks were administered.
Officials said he made no final statement. Larry M. Traylor, a spokesman for the state Corrections Department, said Stewart “seemed a bit apprehensive” but “was very calm.”
A media representative who witnessed the execution said that electricity arced from Stewart’s body and that a two- or three-inch flame was visible coming from the back of a leg. Officials at the Greensville Correctional Center here said this was standard in an electrocution
Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) had denied clemency four hours before the execution. Since Gilmore assumed office in January, eight men have been executed by injection in Virginia. The state has the second-highest execution rate in the country, after Texas. Two more executions are scheduled here next month.
Gilmore had been Stewart’s only hope for clemency since the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution several days ago.
Traylor said preparations for the electrocution were “pretty standard,” with no last-minute complications. The electric chair, last used to execute a man responsible for several Richmond stranglings, is tested every month and was tested Tuesday and again today, Traylor said.
“It’s in a state of constant readiness,” he added.
In an interview published in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, Stewart said he chose the electric chair because he thought lethal injection dishonored Jesus Christ. Under that method, an inmate is strapped to a gurney with his arms outstretched as lethal chemicals enter the body intravenously
MAN WHO KILLED WIFE, SON EXECUTED IN VA. ELECTRIC CHAIR
By R.H. Melton
September 24, 1998
Kenneth M. Stewart Jr., who shot and killed his wife and infant son, became the first person to be executed in Virginia’s electric chair tonight since 1994.
The electrocution went according to plan, corrections officials said, and Stewart, 44, a recovering alcoholic who described himself as a born-again Christian, was pronounced dead at 9:11 p.m. after two series of shocks were administered.
Officials said he made no final statement. Larry M. Traylor, a spokesman for the state Corrections Department, said Stewart “seemed a bit apprehensive” but “was very calm.”
A media representative who witnessed the execution said that electricity arced from Stewart’s body and that a two- or three-inch flame was visible coming from the back of a leg. Officials at the Greensville Correctional Center here said this was standard in an electrocution.
Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) had denied clemency four hours before the execution. Since Gilmore assumed office in January, eight men have been executed by injection in Virginia. The state has the second-highest execution rate in the country, after Texas. Two more executions are scheduled here next month.
Gilmore had been Stewart’s only hope for clemency since the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution several days ago.
Traylor said preparations for the electrocution were “pretty standard,” with no last-minute complications. The electric chair, last used to execute a man responsible for several Richmond stranglings, is tested every month and was tested Tuesday and again today, Traylor said.
“It’s in a state of constant readiness,” he added.
In an interview published in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, Stewart said he chose the electric chair because he thought lethal injection dishonored Jesus Christ. Under that method, an inmate is strapped to a gurney with his arms outstretched as lethal chemicals enter the body intravenously.
“They can shoot me, they can hang me or do what they want to, but I won’t die with my arms outstretched, you know, like the son of God,” Stewart said.
State law was changed in 1995 to give inmates the injection option, and 30 have chosen it since then. The electric chair and gurney are located side by side in the death chamber here. The chair was moved from Richmond in 1991; 13 men have been executed in it here.
Stewart, a Bedford County heating and air-conditioning installer, shot his estranged wife and their 5-month-old son twice in the head at the family’s farmhouse, then arranged the corpses in bed so that the little boy was cradled in his mother’s arm. Stewart said that he conferred with a prison psychologist and psychiatrist about his unusual choice of execution method and that they asked whether he wanted a “more humane way of being put to death.”
He replied: “There ain’t no humane way to put a human being to death if you stop and think.”