Mark Sheppard and Andre Graham were executed by the State of Virginia for a double murder
According to court documents Mark Sheppard and Andre Graham would go over to the home of Richard and Rebecca Rosenbluth who he would fatally shoot and rob the home
Mark Sheppard and Andre Graham would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Mark Sheppard would be executed by lethal injection on January 20 1999
Andre Graham would be executed by lethal injection on December 9 1999
Mark Sheppard Photos
Andre Graham Photos
Mark Sheppard Case
Mark Arlo Sheppard, convicted of murdering a suburban Richmond couple, was executed by injection tonight hours after his last appeals failed. Sheppard, who insisted that he was not the triggerman in the Nov. 28, 1993, shootings of Richard and Rebecca Rosenbluth at the couple’s Chesterfield County home, was pronounced dead at 9:07 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Center. When asked for a final statement by Warden David Garraghty, Sheppard mumbled four dates and, after each one, said, “I love you.” Sheppard’s attorney, Chris Collins, said he believes the dates were birthdays of family members or close friends. “He seemed very much at peace and accepted what was going to happen,” said Collins, who met with Sheppard just before the execution and walked with the inmate into the death chamber. “His concern was with his family.”
Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III rejected Sheppard’s last appeal this afternoon, saying he saw no reason to intervene in the execution, the first one scheduled in the state this year. “After reviewing all of the evidence, the judge imposed the death sentences. The convictions and death sentences were upheld on multiple appeals,” he said. Earlier in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a stay of execution 7 to 2 without comment. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens were in the minority. Sheppard, 27, said in a telephone interview that prosecutors framed him for the killings even though they knew another man committed the crime. “Basically, I’m mad because of what’s going on,” Sheppard told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Tuesday. “I’m a peaceful guy. . . . I’m trying to stay strong for my family.” Prosecutors said Sheppard and an accomplice, Andre Graham, were cocaine dealers who killed the Rosenbluths when their finances began to dwindle.
Autopsies detected cocaine in the Rosenbluths’ bodies, and drug paraphernalia was found in their home. Richard Rosenbluth, 40, was shot twice in the head, and his wife, 35, was shot four times in the head and neck. Graham received a life term in the Rosenbluths’ slayings and is on death row for another murder, in October 1993. Sheppard testified at his own trial that Graham and a third man, Benji Vaughan, were the triggermen in the Rosenbluths’ deaths. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a claim from Sheppard that Virginia’s “fast track” appeals law had unconstitutionally denied him the due process people convicted of other crimes receive.
