Willie Clisby Executed For Fletcher Handley Murder

Willie Clisby was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of Fletcher Handley

According to court documents Willie Clisby would break into the home of Fletcher Handley and would beat the man to death with an axe before robbing the home

Clisby would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Willie Clisby would be executed via the electric chair on April 28 1995

Willie Clisby Case

A man who killed an acquaintance with an ax in a robbery was executed in the state’s electric chair early today.

As the scheduled 12:01 A.M. execution of Willie Clisby approached, inmates in the cells above the execution chamber at Holman Prison started banging on the walls. Mr. Clisby, 47, sat impassively in the chair and made no last statement.

Mr. Clisby was convicted of killing Fletcher Handley, 58, in a break-in at Mr. Handley’s home in Birmingham in 1979. The two men had worked together at a cemetery.

In their final appeals, Mr. Clisby’s lawyer’s argued that the electric chair was a cruel form of punishment. But Judge A. L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit rejected the request for a stay of the execution

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Henry Hays Executed For Michael Donald Murder

Henry Hays was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of Michael Donald

According to court documents Henry Hays was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and he and another member would attack nineteen year old Michael Donald because of the color of his skin. Michael Donald was kidnapped, beaten, stabbed and strangled before his body was hung from a tree

Henry Hays would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Henry Hays would be executed by way of the electric chair on June 6 1997

Donald’s mother would sue the KKK which ended with the organization having to declare bankruptcy

Henry Hays Photos

Henry Hays - Alabama

Henry Hays Case

A former Ku Klux Klansman whose killing of a black teenager ultimately bankrupted the KKK faction suspected of ordering the crime was executed in the state’s electric chair early today.

Henry Francis Hays, 42, was pronounced dead at 12:18 a.m. local time in Alabama’s first execution for a white-on-black crime since 1913.

Hays was convicted in the 1981 slaying of Michael Donald, a 19-year-old black man who was abducted at random from a Mobile street by two men, then beaten, cut and strangled. His body was strung up in a tree by the curb.

Gov. Fob James Jr. had refused to grant Hays clemency.

Prosecutors said the slaying was ordered by Klan leaders, including Hays’s father, “to show Klan strength in Alabama.”

Instead of emboldening racists, the slaying wound up financially destroying the United Klans of America in 1987. The Klan was hit with a $7 million wrongful-death verdict in a case brought by Donald’s mother

The Klan had nowhere near that amount in assets. It had to sign over its Tuscaloosa building to Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, who sold it for about $52,000 and bought a house. She has since died.

Prosecutors said the Klan members decided to kill a black person after a jury deadlocked in the trial of a black man charged with killing a white police officer.

James “Tiger” Knowles, then 18, testified that he and Hays picked Donald at random and forced him into a car, then beat him with a tree limb, cut his throat and tightened a noose around his neck. Knowles was given a life sentence in exchange for his testimony.

Hays said he unwillingly joined the United Klans to satisfy his father, an “Exalted Cyclops” controlling the group’s southern Alabama operations. Hays accused Knowles of framing him.

The last time a white person in Alabama was executed for killing a black was 84 years ago: Two whites were hanged in Birmingham for murdering a black who trained fighting cocks

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/06/06/ex-klansman-executed-in-racial-slaying/6a36e3a3-88a0-43c8-a0bf-aab8e6f95b7b/

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Walter Hill Executed Alabama Serial Killer

Walter Hill was executed by the State of Alabama for the murders of five people

According to court documents Walter Hill would murder the first victim in 1952 and would be sentenced to ten years in prison. Once free he would be arrested for kidnapping and was sentenced to fourteen years in prison and during that time would be convicted of killing a fellow inmate

Once out Hill who was then 42 years old wanted to marry a 13 year old girl and when her parents refused he would murder Willie Mae Hammock, 60, John Tatum, 36; and Tatum’s wife Lois Jean Tatum, 34.

Hill would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Walter Hill would be executed by way of the electric chair on May 2 1997

Walter Hill Photos

Walter Hill - Alabama

Walter Hill Case

A man was executed in the electric chair early Friday for killing three people after he was refused permission to marry a 13-year-old girl.

The slayings came two years after Walter Hill was freed from prison for killing two other people.Hill, 62, was pronounced dead at 1:13 a.m.

The state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected last-minute appeals.

Hill spent 20 years on death row – so long prosecutors and victims advocates had difficulty finding relatives of the people he killed in Bessemer.

A new Alabama law permits victims’ relatives to view the execution, but none came forward in Hill’s case.

On Jan. 7, 1977, Hill fatally shot Willie Mae Hammock, 60, who refused to allow him to marry her 13-year-old daughter, Toni; Miss Hammock’s stepbrother, John Tatum Jr., 36, and his wife, Lois Jean Tatum, 34.

https://www.deseret.com/1997/5/2/19310188/slayer-in-alabama-executed-for-killing-3-after-rejection

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Billy Waldrop Executed For Thurman Macon Donahoo Murder

Billy Waldrop was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of Thurman Macon Donahoo

According to court documents Billy Waldrop would break into the home of Thurman Macon Donahoo. The elderly man would be fatally shot before his house was set on fire

Billy Waldrop would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Billy Waldrop would be executed via the electric chair on January 10 1997

Billy Waldrop Case

That sometime prior to June 2, 1982, the defendant, Billy Waldrop, together with Eugene Singleton and Henry Mayes, planned and conspired together to rob, burglarize his house, and murder, if necessary, Thurman Macon Donahoo, a resident of Alpine, a rural area in Talladega County, Alabama. In furtherance of this scheme and conspiracy, the conspirators obtained a pistol to carry out their plan. The defendant and his co-conspirators knew or believed that the victim owned and possessed a large diamond ring, which he wore regularly and which was reputed to be of considerable *957 value. The victim did, in fact, own a diamond ring of approximately five carats, and it was, in fact, very valuable. Pursuant to their scheme, plan, and conspiracy, the defendant, Billy Waldrop, with one or more of his co-conspirators and accomplices, proceeded to the home of the victim on the night of June 2, 1982. When they arrived at his home, the victim was alive and in possession of the ring. When they left, the victim was dead or dying, and the defendant and his accomplices were in possession of the ring, together with other items of value taken from the house of the victim. After committing the robbery, burglary, and murder, and before leaving the scene of the crime, the defendant and his accomplices set fire to the victim’s house, obviously to destroy any and all evidence of their crime. The house was completely destroyed by the fire and the victim’s body was burned almost beyond recognition. The body, or portion remaining, was found partially beneath an overturned refrigerator. The next day the defendant and co-conspirator Mayes were in the State of Tennessee attempting to dispose of the ring and other items that had been stolen from the victim. They were unsuccessful and returned to Alabama, where they ultimately disposed of the ring for the sum of $10,000.00, the defendant receiving most of the money. By intense and excellent police work, the diamond was ultimately recovered and positively identified.

The murder of the victim was of the intentional killing type while the defendant and his accomplices were committing robbery in the first degree and burglary in the first degree. The intent required in the various counts of the indictment are not mutually exclusive, and the defendant and his accomplices possessed all of the requisite intent to sustain a conviction on each count of the indictment; and the jury so found. The jury likewise was instructed that the felony murder doctrine had no application to a capital offense for which the defendant was being tried.

https://law.justia.com/cases/alabama/court-of-appeals-criminal/1983/459-so-2d-953-0.html

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Steven Thompson Executed For Robin Balarzs Murder

Steven Thompson was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of Robin Balarzs

According to court documents Steven Thompson would go to the home of Robin Balarzs, who was engaged to Thompson friend, the woman would be bound, sexually assaulted and dragged over three thousand feet behind a vehicle causing her death. Thompson would steal Robin Balarzs engagement ring before fleeing

Steven Thompson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Steven Thompson would be executed via the electric chair

Steven Thompson Case

The victim, Robin Balarzs, was engaged to marry David Roberts, a long-time friend of the defendant. On May 11, 1984, David Roberts was absent from Huntsville due to military service. Defendant (Steven Thompson) was aware of this absence.

On that day defendant (Steven Thompson) went to the home in Huntsville where Robin Balarz [sic] resided with her parents and her young child. The parents and the child were also out of town. Robin and her friend Cindy McElroy were at the residence. Defendant, Robin and Cindy engaged in normal conversation and defendant slept on a sofa while the girls retired to separate bedrooms.

Early on the morning of May 12th defendant left the residence. Cindy McElroy left at a later time. Cindy noticed no unusual behavior on the part of the defendant.

Defendant was absent without leave from the Navy and had need for money and goods which he could convert to cash. He planned to return to the Balarzs household to feloniously take money, gold or silver. In his planning defendant bought tape, bandages and other items with which to bind Robin.

On his arrival in the night of May 12, 1984, defendant entered the household on invitation of his friend and followed a course of conduct which can be described as beyond human comprehension in its vileness.

Defendant (Steven Thompson) bound and gagged Robin with a sock, bandage, rope and tape he had brought into her home with premeditated design. He cut her clothes from her person and beat her with his fists. He took a meager $1.00 bill from her purse (although at some point he also took her engagement ring). He stuffed a sock in her mouth. He cut her with a knife. He positioned his rental vehicle near the garage to facilitate her removal from the residence.

He made some effort to conceal the blood and physical tracings of his acts of brutality, placed Robin, still alive, in the vehicle, left the home and drove to secluded Green Mountain, a rugged area in Huntsville, Madison County. There, he proceeded to brutalize Robin Balarzs in a manner almost unspeakable in its nature, character and extent.

Defendant had sexual intercourse upon her, shoved a large knife into what he thought to be her vagina, bound her breasts with a rope, tied her to the vehicle and dragged her through mud, over rocks and on pavement for a distance in excess of 3000 feet. At some point he pulled and shaved her hair with a razor especially purchased. He stabbed her about her breasts and cut her with the knife.

Robin Balarzs died during her ordeal. Some of the atrocities were against her corpse.

The defendant realized that left in the Balarzs home were items which would reveal his crimes, if not his identity. He returned to the residence for the purpose of securing these items, leaving Robin Balarzs on Green Mountain.

While defendant was attempting to re-enter the Balarzs home David Roberts returned. Seeing David drive up to the residence, defendant evaded detection and drove away to spend the rest of the night in his vehicle.

David Roberts entered the home and noticed signs of the defendant’s depravity. He contacted neighbors and friends of Robin, called hospitals and tried to locate her. Finally, David Roberts called Huntsville Police Department and investigation into the case began. David recalled seeing defendant’s vehicle parked near the residence and an alert was dispatched on defendant by radio. At that time it was in connection with a missing person report.

In the early morning of May 13, 1984, two uniformed officers saw defendant in his vehicle and stopped him. Defendant’s vehicle was dirty and damaged and defendant had what appeared to be blood and mud about his person. Defendant was properly advised of his constitutional rights, taken into custody, removed to police headquarters and questioned.

After first denying knowledge of the fate of Robin Balarzs, defendant made statements admitting his activities and led an officer to the scene atop Green Mountain. Robin’s battered body was found. Her parents and David Roberts were advised that she was dead.

https://casetext.com/case/thompson-v-state-1646

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