Robert Bowers Murders 11 In Pennsylvania

Robert Bowers was sentenced to death by the Federal Government for eleven murders during the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting

According to court documents Robert Bowers would enter the Tree Of Life synagogue is Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and opened fire killing eleven people. Two others were wounded inside of the building and four police officers were injured when they arrived at the scene

Robert Bowers would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

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Robert Bowers was just sentenced to death, August 2 2023

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he gunman who stormed a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and killed 11 worshippers will be sentenced to death for perpetrating the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

Robert Bowers spewed hatred of Jews and espoused white supremacist beliefs online before methodically planning and carrying out the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, where members of three congregations had gathered for Sabbath worship and study. Bowers, a truck driver from suburban Baldwin, also wounded two worshippers and five responding police officers.

The same federal jury that convicted the 50-year-old Robert Bowers on 63 criminal counts recommended Wednesday that he be put to death for an attack whose impacts continue to reverberate nearly five years later. He showed little reaction as the sentence was announced, briefly acknowledging his legal team and family as he was led from the courtroom. A judge will formally impose the sentence later.

Jurors were unanimous in finding that Bowers’ attack was motivated by his hatred of Jews, and that he chose Tree of Life for its location in one the largest and most historic Jewish communities in the U.S. so that he could “maximize the devastation, amplify the harm of his crimes, and instill fear within the local, national, and international Jewish communities.” They also found that Bowers lacked remorse.

The family of 97-year-old Rose Mallinger, who was killed in the attack, and her daughter, Andrea Wedner, who was shot and wounded, thanked the jurors and said “a measure of justice has been served.”

“Returning a sentence of death is not a decision that comes easy, but we must hold accountable those who wish to commit such terrible acts of antisemitism, hate, and violence,” the family said in a written statement.

The verdict came after a lengthy trial in which jurors heard in chilling detail how Bowers reloaded at least twice, stepped over the bloodied bodies of his victims to look for more people to shoot, and surrendered only when he ran out of ammunition. In the sentencing phase, grieving family members told the jury about the lives that Bowers took — a 97-year-old woman and intellectually disabled brothers among them — and the unrelenting pain of their loss. Survivors testified about their own lasting pain, both physical and emotional.

Through it all, Bowers showed little reaction to the proceeding that would decide his fate — typically looking down at papers or screens at the defense table — though he could be seen conversing at length with his legal team during breaks. He even told a psychiatrist that he thought the trial was helping to spread his antisemitic message.

It was the first federal death sentence imposed during the presidency of Joe Biden, whose 2020 campaign included a pledge to end capital punishment. Biden’s Justice Department has placed a moratorium on federal executions and has declined to authorize the death penalty in hundreds of new cases where it could apply. But federal prosecutors said death was the appropriate punishment for Bowers, citing the vulnerability of his mainly elderly victims and his hate-based targeting of a religious community. Most victims’ families said Bowers should die for his crimes.

Bowers’ lawyers never contested his guilt, focusing their efforts on trying to save his life. They presented evidence of a horrific childhood marked by trauma and neglect. They also claimed Bowers had severe, untreated mental illness, saying he killed out of a delusional belief that Jews were helping to cause a genocide of white people. The defense argued that schizophrenia and brain abnormalities made Bowers more susceptible to being influenced by the extremist content he found online.

The prosecution denied mental illness had anything to do with it, saying Bowers knew exactly what he was doing when he violated the sanctity of a house of worship by opening fire on terrified congregants with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons, shooting everyone he could find.

The jury sided with prosecutors, specifically rejecting most of the primary defense arguments for a life sentence, including that he has schizophrenia and that his delusions about Jewish people spurred the attack. Jurors did find that his difficult childhood merited consideration, but gave more weight to the severity of the crimes.

Bowers blasted his way into Tree of Life on Oct. 27, 2018, and killed members of the Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life congregations, which shared the synagogue building.

The victims were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.

Bowers, who traded gunfire with responding officers and was shot three times, told police at the scene that “all these Jews need to die,” according to testimony. Ahead of the attack, he posted, liked or shared a stream of virulently antisemitic content on Gab, a social media platform popular with the far right. He has expressed no remorse for the killings, telling mental health experts he saw himself as a soldier in a race war, took pride in the attack and wished he had shot more people.

In emotional testimony, the victims’ family members described what Bowers took from them. “My world has fallen apart,” Sharyn Stein, Dan Stein’s widow, told the jury.

Survivors and other affected by the attack will have another opportunity to address the court — and Bowers — when he is formally sentenced by the judge.

The synagogue has been closed since the shootings. The Tree of Life congregation is working on an overhauled synagogue complex that would house a sanctuary, museum, memorial and center for fighting antisemitism.

https://news.yahoo.com/jury-resumes-deliberations-over-death-131602865.html

Juan Garza Executed Drug Kingpin

Juan Garza was executed by the Federal Government under the 1988 federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act

According to court documents Juan Garza was a drug kingpin who was responsible for the importation of thousands of pounds of marijuana throughout the United States. Through his criminal empire he was responsible for at least three murders. Juan would be arrested under the 1988 federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act which imposes a death sentence if murder was committed to further his criminal empire

Juan Garza would be executed by lethal injection on June 19 2001

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Juan Garza was executed on June 19 2001

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Convicted killer Juan Raul Garza dies by lethal injection in a U.S. prison after a clemency plea to President George W. Bush failed. It is the second federal execution in eight days — after 38 without any federal executions. Garza was pronounced dead at 7:09 a.m. local time (8:09 a.m. EDT) Garza showed very little emotion and seemed ready to die, according to several media witnesses. They said he apologized and asked for forgiveness in his final statement before the execution began.

Media witness Karen Hensel said Garza made a final statement before his execution. “He said ‘I want to say that I’m sorry. I apologize for all the pain and grief that I caused. I ask for your forgiveness and God bless,’ ” Hensel said. “At that point he did somewhat of a sigh, like it’s over.”

Added Karen Grunden, another media observer: “There was not really a point at any time where you could actually say he died. There was no final breath that we noticed at all.”

Garza’s and McVeigh’s deaths are the only two federal executions since 1963.

Prison spokesman Jim Cross said Garza had spent the last few hours watching television, talking with staff, seeing the prison chaplain, and speaking to his spiritual adviser. Cross would not release the name of the witnesses Garza asked to watch his execution. The White House Monday night announced that President Bush had denied Garza’s petition for clemency, which argued that the federal death penalty is biased against minorities. Garza is Hispanic.

“The president found no grounds to grant clemency in this case,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Garza’s attorneys, who were rebuffed by the Supreme Court twice Monday, were informed of Bush’s decision after deciding not to pursue additional appeals. Garza, 44, a confessed drug trafficker, was sentenced to death in August, 1993 in Texas for murdering or ordering the murders of three other drug traffickers in an attempt to gain control of distribution networks. He was sentenced to death for each of the murders under a federal “drug kingpin” statute.

The U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, rejected two petitions by Garza Monday. The first argued that his sentencing jury had not been adequately instructed on the alternative of life in prison without parole, and the second maintained that human rights provisions of an international agreement had been violated. Garza was born in Brownsville, Texas, the son of Hispanic migrant workers. He has two children ages 9 and 12, and had ratcheted up his pleas for leniency as the execution date neared. Last year, he received two stays from President Clinton, including one in December just days before his scheduled execution, delaying it for six months to allow federal authorities to review the case.

The Bush administration had given many signals that it would not approve the clemency request, which argued that the federal death penalty is biased against minorities. In a statement, Attorney General John Ashcroft said there is no reason to spare Garza’s life. He said Garza was responsible for the three deaths and five others — including at least four murders in Mexico for which he was never prosecuted. Ashcroft also said there was no racial bias in the case, emphasizing the prosecutor was Hispanic, as were seven of the eight victims. The Department of Justice, as well, said a recently completed study found no racial bias in the federal system. Garza’s attorney John Howley strongly disagreed, saying “there’s no question that race plays a big part in every death sentence.” “The fact is we only give out the death penalty in this country to poor, to minorities, and to the mentally retarded,” he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/06/19/garza.execution/

Timothy McVeigh Execution Of Oklahoma City Bomber

Timothy McVeigh was executed by the Federal Government for the Oklahoma City Bombing that killed 168 people

According to court documents Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols would plan the Oklahoma City bombing for sometime. McVeigh and Nichols would create a large explosive device that was set in the back of a rental van. The van would be driven to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building where a two minute fuse was lit. When the bomb exploded it would destroy the building claiming 168 lives and injured 680 others

Timothy McVeigh would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Timothy McVeigh would be executed by lethal injection on June 11 2001

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Timothy McVeigh was executed on June 11 2001

Timothy McVeigh Case

Despite an emotional last-minute plea from his parents, Timothy James McVeigh was sentenced to death Friday for his role in the worst case of terrorism in U.S. history — the Oklahoma City bombing. The seven-man, five-woman panel unanimously chose death by lethal injection for the 29-year-old Gulf War veteran, after deliberating for 11 hours over two days. Anything less than a unanimous verdict would have meant life in prison without parole. The jury also could have opted to send the case back to the judge and let him determine the sentence.

Penalty is for killing federal agents

The same federal jury who sentenced McVeigh convicted him of murder and conspiracy last week in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building that killed 168 people. He was tried for conspiracy to commit the attack and for the deaths of eight federal law agents who were in the building when a massive diesel fuel-fertilizer bomb ripped the front off the nine-story building. McVeigh was charged along with his Army buddy Terry Nichols, who will be tried at a later date. Testimony for the penalty phase in McVeigh’s trial ended Wednesday, and deliberations began Thursday after the completion of closing arguments.

Jurors never heard from McVeigh himself during the four-day penalty phase of the trial. Instead, 27 witnesses were called to portray him as a friendly child and first-rate soldier who left the Gulf War disillusioned and restless. Supporting a contention made by the prosecution, the defense argued that the 1993 siege near Waco, Texas, became a source of bitter anger for McVeigh. About 80 members of the Branch Davidian cult were killed during a federal assault exactly two years before the Oklahoma blast.

At times, jurors were in tears

Prosecutors, citing vivid testimony from blast survivors and victims, argued that the blast was so lethal and destructive that McVeigh deserved death. Several prosecution witnesses brought jurors to tears with their accounts of mayhem, heroism and random death in Oklahoma City. Although all of the jurors, before they were selected, told the court they would be willing to consider the death penalty, Colorado juries have tended to be reluctant to sentence defendants to death. The state has five people on death row, and hasn’t executed anyone since 1967.

A passion for weapons

The trial was moved to Denver by U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch because he said McVeigh could not “obtain a fair and impartial trial at any place” in Oklahoma.

The son of a General Motors auto worker from a rural area near Buffalo, New York, McVeigh went on to become an Army platoon leader, serving in a Bradley Fighting vehicle during the Gulf War. After his return to the United States, he was discharged from the Army and took a series of odd jobs, drifting across the country and spending time with militia groups. Both sides offered testimony during the trial on his passion for weapons and his zealous opposition to gun control.

http://home4.inet.tele.dk/lepan/lene/exe7.htm

Louis Jones Executed For Tracie McBride Murder

Louis Jones was executed by the Federal Government for the murder of Tracie McBride

According to court documents Louis Jones would drive onto the Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas where he would kidnap Private Tracie McBride at gunpoint. The woman would be driven to a home where she would be sexually assaulted. Tracie McBride would be then driven to a bridge where she was fatally beaten with a tire iron. McBride body would be found underneath the bridge

Louis Jones would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Louis Jones would be executed by lethal injection on March 18 2003

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Louis Jones was executed on March 18 2003

Louis Jones Case

Without so much as a glance toward the loved ones of the woman he killed, Louis Jones Jr. went to his death Tuesday. Sentenced in 1995 to die for kidnapping, raping and killing 19-year-old Pvt. Tracie Joy McBride, Jones was pronounced dead at 7:08 a.m. after an injection of lethal chemicals at the federal penitentiary. He became the third federal prisoner put to death in 40 years. The others were Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Texas drug lord Juan Raul Garza, both in June 2001.

Jones, a decorated Gulf War veteran, received a fraction of the attention given to those cases. As the death chamber curtain opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday, Jones looked toward the witnesses he had invited and mouthed the words, “I love you.” Draped with a white sheet and strapped to a hospital table, he could see his four supporters and loved ones and the eight members of the media. He could not see the McBride family, hidden behind a one-way glass, and did not acknowledge them.

Jones first recited Psalm 118:18: “The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death.” In a hoarse voice, he then began singing the hymn “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,” repeating the chorus — “In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever ’til my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river.” A Bureau of Prisons official cut into his singing to read the charges of which Jones was convicted. Jones kept on singing until U.S. Marshal Jim Kennedy gave the final go-ahead for the execution. The speaker from the death chamber was turned off, but Jones continued to sing.

At 7:06 a.m., an official announced that the first of three drugs had been administered. Jones’ eyes froze open, staring blankly. His lips remained parted, as if halted in midsong. At 7:07 a.m., the second drug was administered. He was pronounced dead a minute later, after the third drug — which stopped his heart — had been administered.

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to block the execution, and President Bush denied Jones’ clemency petition. The petition claimed Jones suffered brain damage and a change in personality after being exposed to sarin nerve gas during the 1991 war. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Pierce, who prosecuted Jones, dismissed his claims. “It is an insult to the thousands and thousands of people who went over there and did their patriotic duty, came back and are law-abiding citizens,” Pierce said. Jones’ attorney, Tim Floyd, said his client had hoped Bush would intervene. “It is a cruel irony,” Floyd said, “that on the day we mobilize for war in Iraq, the life of Sergeant Louis Jones Jr. — a consummate soldier — was ended at the hands of the government he proudly served.”

Jones spent the early morning meeting with his daughter, 22-year-old Barbara Jones, according to Floyd. She did not witness the execution. His last meal consisted of peaches, nectarines and plums. “He died with a song of praise to God on his lips,” said Floyd, who witnessed the execution.

After the execution, 10 relatives and friends of Tracie McBride, wearing badges with her picture on them, addressed the media. “The tears we have shed today are not for Louis Jones,” said Tracie’s sister, Stacie McBride. “They are for Tracie and for Tracie alone.” Stacie McBride, 24, who hopes to become a criminal prosecutor, said she was shocked that Jones did not apologize to the family. “He did not even acknowledge us,” she said. “The whole thing was very self-serving. It was unbelievable.”

In a statement later read by his attorney, Jones said: “I accept full responsibility for the pain, anguish and the suffering I caused the McBrides for having taken Tracie from them.” Jones served in the Army for 22 years before retiring with the rank of master sergeant in 1993. In 2000, the Pentagon sent Jones a letter telling him he had been exposed to chemical agents when the Army demolished a munitions plant in Khamisiyah, Iraq. Jones’ family will claim his body after the Vigo County coroner releases it.

Barred from burial in a veterans cemetery, Jones will be buried in a Chicago cemetery instead. Fears that McVeigh, a fellow Gulf War veteran, might be buried in a military cemetery led to a 1997 law prohibiting the honor for people convicted of capital crimes. “Now another family has been devastated,” said Jones’ minister, the Rev. J. Jason Fry, an execution witness. “A daughter has lost her father. Grandchildren will never know their grandfather.”

The McBride family said their healing has just begun. “Today was a day of justice for Tracie,” said her mother, Irene McBride, Centerville, Minn. “It’s been a long eight years, and the healing process is not over.”

http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/0/029881-8680-009.html

Alfred Bourgeois Executed For Murder Of 2 Year Old

Alfred Bourgeois was executed by the Federal Government for the sexual assault and murder of his two year old daughter

According to court documents Alfred Bourgeois would torture, sexually assault and murder the two year old girl

Alfred Bourgeois would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Alfred Bourgeois would be executed on December 11 2020 by lethal injection

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Alfred Bourgeois was executed on December 11 2020

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Alfred Bourgeois was executed by lethal injection

Alfred Bourgeois Case

A 55-year-old Louisiana man who was convicted of capital murder in the killing of his daughter in South Texas is set to be executed Friday. 

Alfred Bourgeois, a truck driver from LaPlace, Louisianna, was convicted of capital murder in 2004  for the death of his 2-year-old daughter at Naval Air Station-Corpus Christi. 

He was also found guilty of physically and emotionally torturing, sexually molesting and beating the child to death, court records state. 

In July 2002, Bourgeois, his daughter and two family members followed him on his trucking route to Corpus Christi naval base to deliver a shipment, according to court documents. 

Documents state Bourgeois became angry with his daughter because she tipped over her potty training seat he would force her to sit on. He grabbed her by her shoulders and slammed the back of her head into the windshield around the dashboard four times, records state. 

The child was taken to the hospital where she later died after being on life support. The medical examiner found deep tissue bruising in every area of the girl’s body, documents state. 

uthorities also discovered Bourgeois had constantly abused the girl violently and sexually. Bourgeois was put on death row in 2004. 

He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Friday, Dec. 11 at the Federal Correction Complex Terre Haute in Indiana. 

https://www.caller.com/story/news/crime/2020/12/08/louisiana-trucker-who-killed-toddler-corpus-christi-executed/6479853002/

Alfred Bourgeois Execution

Louisiana truck driver Alfred Bourgeois was executed by the U.S. government on Friday.

Bourgeois, 56, was sentenced to death in 2004 for severely abusing and killing his 2-year-old daughter in Texas. He was executed at the Federal Correctional Center in Terre Haute, Indiana, according to the Associated Press.

Up until his death, Bourgeois’ lawyers argued he had an IQ that would put him in the intellectually disabled category and should have made him ineligible for the death penalty.

According to CNN, Bourgeois insisted upon his innocence in his final statement on Friday evening. “I ask God to forgive all those who plotted and schemed against me, and planted false evidence,” he said. “I did not commit this crime.”

Anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean, as well as politicians and other leaders, spoke out about Bourgeois’ case on Friday.

“The SCOTUS voted to allow the federal government to execute Alfred Bourgeois despite the fact that he is intellectually disabled with an IQ measured between 70-75,” Prejean wrote on Twitter.

“The depravity and evil of this admin’s race to murder as many people on death row as possible is shocking & inhumane,” added Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “We know how our carceral system works. The wealthy + privileged can buy freedom & leniency, the vulnerable are killed. It must stop. Abolish the death penalty.”

Bourgeois was the 10th death row inmate to be executed since President Donald Trump’s administration announced a revival of capital punishment for federal death row inmates in July 2019.

The decision, ending a 17-year hiatus, has been met with sharp criticism, though the Department of Justice has defended it.

“The Department intended to resume executions in December 2019, however due to litigation, the process was suspended,” a spokeswoman told CNN on Friday. “Once the Supreme Court ruled in favor of resuming executions, the Department has proceeded each month — with the exception of October — since July 2020.”

Bourgeois’ execution comes just one day after that of Brandon Bernard, who was convicted of two counts of murder for his involvement in the 1999 double murder of youth ministers Todd and Stacie Bagley.

“I’m sorry. That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day,” Bernard, 40, said before his death, according to the Associated Press. “I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t.”

There are three more executions of federal death row inmates planned in January, prior to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.