Sylvester Adams was executed by the State of South Carolina for the murder of Bryan Chambers
According to court documents Sylvester Adams would attempt to rob his sixteen year old neighbor Bryan Chambers. When Adams found nothing worthy in the home he would drag Bryan Chambers into the woods and strangled him
Sylvester Adams would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Sylvester Adams would be executed by lethal injection on August 18 1995
Sylvester Adams Case
A mildly retarded murderer whose last words included “I’m not crazy” was executed by injection today as he sang a religious song.
“Jesus, your baby is coming home,” sang the inmate, Sylvester Adams, before his voice trailed away with these words: “I love you. I love you, Lord.”
A few moments earlier, as he lay strapped on a gurney, with needles for the injection in his arms, Mr. Adams, 39, said: “I am the happiest man in the world. I’m not afraid to die. I’m not crazy.”
Mr. Adams was convicted of murdering a 16-year-old mildly retarded neighbor, Bryan Chambers, in 1979 after Mr. Adams broke into the Chambers house looking for money. When he found none, he dragged Bryan into nearby woods and strangled him.
Both the South Carolina Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court rejected arguments that the legal system had not considered Mr. Adams’s mild retardation or psychological problems.
The jury that convicted Mr. Adams and sentenced him to death was not told that his I.Q. indicated he was mildly retarded, said his appeal lawyer, John Blume, or that he had a mental illness that could cause him to burst into a rage.
Four of the five Justices of the State Supreme Court said Mr. Adams’s trial had been fair and withstood numerous appeals.
The United States Supreme Court rejected a final appeal without comment.
Gov. David Beasley refused to consider commuting the death sentence, despite a request to do so from the victim’s mother and opponents of the death penalty.
Under a new law, Mr. Adams was the first South Carolina inmate allowed to choose injection instead of the electric chair.
