Newton Slawson was executed by the State of Florida for four murders
According to court documents Newton Slawson would go to the Wood household for a drug deal that would quickly go bad. Before he was done four members of the Wood household would be dead: Gerald and Peggy Wood; their 4-year-old daughter, Jennifer; 3-year-old son, Glendon.
Newton Slawson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Newton Slawson would be executed by lethal injection on May 16 2003
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When Was Newton Slawson Executed
Newton Slawson was executed on May 16 2003
Newton Slawson Case
Condemned killer Newton Slawson, whose appointment with the executioner was delayed 13 hours against his wishes, was put to death by lethal injection just after sunrise today. When asked whether he had any last statement, he told the warden, “No, sir.” Two members of the victim’s family were witnesses to the execution.
Slawson, who murdered a family of four and an unborn child during a 90-second, drug-induced frenzy in Tampa 14 years ago, had given up his appeals and fired his lawyers. He was to have died Thursday evening, but two former lawyers sent a last-minute letter to Gov. Jeb Bush saying they believed Slawson was insane and should not be executed. That triggered an automatic three-psychiatrist examination. The trio met with Slawson late Thursday and detemined he met the legal requirement of being aware of the penalty he was facing and understood why he was to be executed. He had also been found competent to represent himself in legal matters at an earlier hearing.
Slawson, 48, shot Glendon Wood, 3, and his sister Jennifer, 4, point-blank with a .357-caliber revolver. He knifed and shot their father, Gerald, 23, and mother, Peggy Wood, 21. Peggy Wood was eight months pregnant. Slawson took a six-inch pocketknife, slit Peggy Wood’s belly open and removed the unborn child. Bleeding, Wood later crawled down the garage apartment stairs, dragged herself across a back yard to her mother’s home and told her, Newton did it.'' Slawson later told police the cutting was an attempt to save the child's life. He also told a jury that he thought Gerald Wood had slipped cocaine into his beer, sending him intococaine-induced intoxication.” The jury didn’t buy it, voting unanimously for conviction. But jurors split on whether he should get the death penalty. The majority, though, recommended death and the judge agreed.
”Mr. Slawson was convicted of a heinous, brutal crime,” Alia Faraj, spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush, said Thursday. “This is why we have the death penalty on the books.” Ronald Ray Williams, Peggy Wood’s brother, said death by lethal injection was certainly more peaceful than what his sister suffered. ”It was so sad because they were shot point blank,” Williams said of the deaths of his sister and her family. He called the execution ”a closing of the book” during an interview last week.
Death penalty opponents criticized the execution as an ”assisted suicide,” noting that recent executions in Florida have been inmates like female serial killer Aileen Wournos, who have given up their right to appeal. Nationwide, 97 such ”volunteers” have been executed since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for restoration of the death penalty in the mid-1970’s, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit interest group. ‘This is the fifth `volunteer’ Gov. Bush has killed,” said Abe Bonowitz, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “With more than 360 people on Death Row it is kind of puzzling that he is killing so many volunteers.
At a court hearing in Tampa last month, Slawson told Circuit Judge Rex Barbas that he planned to continue to seek execution. ”Judge, let’s just end this, please,” said Slawson, who dropped his appeals in 1997. But Slawson’s former attorney argues that Slawson was not competent to represent himself. ”He is not mentally competent to fire his lawyers and he is not mentally competent to be executed,” said attorney Brian Donerly. The judge, though, has ruled that Slawson is capable and the governor’s office argues that “justice for Slawson’s victims is overdue.”
Slawson, a former fertilizer bag stacker, had eaten his last meal, a plate of battered fried scallops and a Coke. Throughout the day, Thursday, Slawson visited through a plastic window with his mother, two uncles and a cousin, all from North Carolina. After visiting with his family, Slawson read part of a Star Trek book titled ”Eugenics Wars,” said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. Ivey said Slawson appeared ”very relaxed, very focused,” before his execution, and that the inmate told guards, “I’m ready. It is time.”