Kirt Wainwright was executed by the State of Arkansas for two murders
According to court documents Kirt Wainwright would rob two stores in two days and in each of the robberies would fatally shoot the clerk: Karen Ross and Barbara Smith
Kirt Wainwright would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Kirt Wainwright would be executed by lethal injection on January 8 1997
Kirt Wainwright Case
Arkansas executed three killers tonight, the third after he waited on a gurney with needles in his arms while the U.S. Supreme Court considered his last-minute appeal.
Kirt Wainwright waited 40 minutes until the high court refused to hear his final plea in the 1988 killing of a convenience store clerk. Before the drugs were administered, he read a poem.
Earlier, Earl Van Denton and Paul Ruiz, both of whom spent 18 years on death row, were executed for the murder of a town marshal and a park ranger in 1977.
Only once before had three convicts been put to death on the same night since capital punishment resumed in 1976. Arkansas executed three killers 2 1/2 years ago. The men were executed on the same night to reduce overtime costs and stress on prison employees.
Denton, 47, was chosen first because his prisoner identification number was the lowest. Ruiz, 49, was executed an hour later. Neither man made a final statement. Gov. Mike Huckabee delayed the execution of Wainwright until the high court ruled on Wainwright’s appeal of whether clemency should be in the hands of someone who knew the killer’s victim. Huckabee knew Barbara Smith, the convenience store clerk Wainwright killed
