Russell Burket was executed by the State of Virginia for a double murder
According to court documents Russell Burket would break into the home of Katherine Tafelski. The woman would be sexually assaulted before she was murdered. Burket would also murder her five year old daughter Ashley Tafelski and attempted to murder two other children
Russell Burket would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Russell Burket would be executed by lethal injection on August 30 2000
Russell Burket Photos
Russell Burket FAQ
When Was Russell Burket Executed
Russell Burket was executed on August 30 2000
Russell Burket Case
A man who killed a Virginia Beach woman and her 5-year-old daughter was executed Wednesday night after Gov. Jim Gilmore denied a request for clemency. Russel W. Burket, 32, was put to death by injection at the Greensville Correctional Center. He was pronounced dead at 9:07 p.m. Burket, asked if he had a final statement, shook his head and said nothing. Burket’s execution originally was set for June 21, but the U.S. Supreme Court granted him a stay 75 minutes before he was scheduled to die. 8 days later, the court refused to hear his appeal.
Anthony A. Protogyrou, Burket’s lawyer, sent Gilmore a letter Monday seeking clemency. Protogyrou said Burket is mentally disabled and wasn’t thinking correctly when he pleaded guilty to the crime in 1994. “That was when he was still seeing monsters in his cell,” Protogyrou said in a telephone interview. Burket’s lawyers also asked for a retest a blue washcloth that was found at the crime scene containing traces of semen. Previous testing matched DNA from the semen to about 8 % of all white men, including Burket and his brother, Lester Burket Jr. Lester Burket was questioned by police about the 1993 slaying but was never charged. Gilmore said further DNA testing was unnecessary, given the previous testing, Russel Burket’s continuing admission of guilt and “his insistence that no one else was involved.”
Protogyrou said the two brothers, along with their mother and father, met for about four hours earlier Wednesday. The Rev. Bobby West, a Roanoke minister who has been counseling Burket, said the condemned man was in a “good frame of mind” and understood what was about to happen. “There’s nothing else to do to prepare,” said West. “He has repented all his sins.” West said Burket was relieved when Gilmore denied the clemency request. “That’s what I wanted,” he quoted Burket as saying. Burket’s parents had visited with their son twice a day since he was moved from Sussex I state prison to Greensville Correctional Center on Saturday.
Burket was convicted in 1994 of using a rusty crowbar to crush the skulls of his next door neighbor, Katherine Tafelski, and her daughter, Ashley. He also sexually assaulted Katherine Tafelski with the metal bar. Before his original execution date was postponed, Burket opted for the electric chair over lethal injection because it was “his way of ending a life he hasn’t wanted,” Protogyrou said in June. Burket has attempted suicide several times, Protogyrou said. “Now he’s having the state do what he’s always tried to do,” Protogyrou said.
Former Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Humphreys, who prosecuted Burket, never thought Burket was mentally ill. “I always thought he was pretty cagey for someone who’s supposed to be substandard,” Humphreys, now a judge, said in a 1998 interview.
Burket becomes the 5th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Virginia and the 78th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. Only Texas, with 231 executions, has put more condemned inmates to death in the USA since the re-legalization of the death penalty on July 2, 1976. Burket becomes the 66th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 664th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
