Syvasky Poyner was executed by the State of Virginia for five murders
According to court documents in under a month period Syvasky Poyner would murder four women and a teenage girl
- Joyce Baldwin was murdered in her hair salon on January 23 1984
- Clara Louise Paulett and Chestine Brooks were murdered a week later at a motel
- Seventeen year old Vicki Ripple was murdered on January 31 1984 while working in a ice cream shop
- Two days later Carolyn Hedrick was robbed, sexually assaulted and murdered
Syvasky Poyner would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Syvasky Poyner would be executed by way of the electric chair on March 18 1993
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When Was Syvasky Poyner Executed
Syvasky Poyner was executed on March 18 1993
Syvasky Poyner Case
A man who challenged electric chair executions as unconstitutional was electrocuted tonight after losing a final Supreme Court appeal.
Syvasky L. Poyner, who killed five women during a 1984 crime rampage, was pronounced dead in Virginia’s electric chair at 11:13.
Poyner appeared calm as he was led to the execution chamber and strapped in by five guards. A chaplain read a statement from Poyner: “Every hurt that has ever been done . . . heal that hurt. I choose to forgive, and I ask to be forgiven.”
Poyner had sought a ruling that the state’s method of carrying out capital sentences at the Greensville Correctional Center here violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Lawyers for the state contended that Poyner’s appeal amounted to a delaying tactic.
The Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 not to stop the execution.
Justices Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens voted to postpone the execution, apparently to give the court more time to study the appeal.
Earlier this week, Gov. L. Douglas Wilder said he found no reason to grant clemency to the 36-year-old Poyner, who was convicted of murders committed during an 11-day crime spree in Hampton, Newport News and Williamsburg.
Poyner robbed his victims and told police he shot them because he didn’t want to leave witnesses.
He said he chose women because they were easily frightened.
“I am sorry for all the hurt and pain and sorrows and suffering that I caused,” Poyner said today in a statement released through his attorney, Alexander H. Slaughter.
“Please forgive me. . . . I am going home to be with Jesus,” the statement said.
The killings occurred during daylight hours and left Peninsula residents terrorized.
Those slain were:
Joyce Baldwin, 45, a Hampton hair salon manager and mother of five who was the first to be killed, on Jan. 23, 1984.
Louise S. Paulett, 72, and Chestine Brooks, 43, manager and housekeeper of a Williamsburg motel. They were slain Jan. 30, 1984. Brooks had been married three months earlier.
Vicki P. Ripple, 17, a nursing student who was working at an ice cream store when she was killed in Newport News on Jan. 31, 1984.
Carolyn J. Hedrick, 44, a candy distributor and mother of three who was abducted from a supermarket parking lot on Feb. 2, 1984.
Her body was found behind a nearby church. She was planning a daughter’s wedding at the time of her death.
Police arrested Poyner two days after Hedrick’s slaying when witnesses identified him trying to sell candy bars that had been taken from her
Police said Poyner used a stolen .38-caliber revolver to shoot the women.
Poyner was the 195th person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court allowed the resumption of capital punishment in 1976. He was the 18th inmate put to death in Virginia since the state resumed executions in 1982.
Poyner robbed his victims and told police he shot them because he didn’t want to leave witnesses.