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Hernando Williams Executed For Linda Goldstone Murder

Hernando Williams was executed by the State of Illinois for the murder of Linda Goldstone

According to court documents Hernando Williams would kidnap Linda Goldstone from a parking lot and she was brought to a remote location where she was held captive for two days where she was repeatedly sexually assaulted. Williams would release her and not to call the police. Goldstone would go to a home where the owner would call the police however Williams would return and pull her back into the vehicle and killed her soon after

Hernando Williams was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Hernando Williams would be executed by lethal injection on March 25 1995

Hernando Williams Case

According to testimony given at the sentencing hearings and at an earlier motion to suppress statements of the defendant, the victim, Mrs. Linda Goldstone, on March 30, *263 1978, was employed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago as an instructor in the Lamaze method of childbirth. On that evening, as she was alighting from her car in the vicinity of the hospital, she was approached by the defendant and robbed at gunpoint. He made her undress from the waist down. He then forced her into his car and, it appears, took her to a shop owned by his father. There he bound her hands and feet.

Hernando Williams then forced her into the trunk of his car. With Mrs. Goldstone in the trunk, the defendant picked up his sister at work and drove her home. He then drove the victim to a motel, forced her inside and raped her.

On the next day, with Mrs. Goldstone bound and locked in the trunk of the car, the defendant Hernando Williams appeared at a suburban court where charges of aggravated kidnaping, rape, and armed robbery were pending against him. The case was continued, and the defendant then drove to visit a friend, Nettie Jones, at her apartment. While he was there, people of the area heard cries for help coming from the trunk of his auto. Someone notified the police of the incident. The defendant drove away from a crowd that had gathered and proceeded to a tavern where he visited other friends.

Early that evening, the defendant Hernando Williams checked into another motel. He forced Mrs. Goldstone into the motel and again raped her. Later, he forced her back into the trunk and picked up his niece at a friend’s house and drove the niece home. As he had done the day before, he drove his sister home from work and spent the evening visiting various taverns with friends.

In the meantime, police were searching for the defendant’s car. The victim’s husband, Dr. James Goldstone, a physician, after learning that his wife had not appeared for class that evening, notified the police of her absence. The victim’s car was found by Northwestern University security *264 officers. Early the following morning, Dr. Goldstone received a phone call from his wife in which she told him that she would be home soon. He heard a voice in the background say, “Shut up bitch, tell him you’ll be home in about an hour.” The victim asked Dr. Goldstone if he had called the police, and he told her to tell the man whose voice he had heard that he had not informed the police.

Officers investigating the incident at Jones’ apartment obtained the license number of the car and learned that the defendant had visited Jones. The police searched the area for the auto without success and periodically watched the defendant’s home, but the car was not located.

On April 1, at 6 a.m., the defendant released the victim from the trunk of the auto. He gave her $1.25 and instructed her to take a bus home and not to call the police. He then drove off. The victim, ignoring his instructions, ran to the porch of a nearby house for help. The person who came to the door refused to allow her to enter, but he did call the police. The defendant, who had only driven around the block to see whether his instructions would be obeyed, returned and ordered the victim off the porch. He then took her to an abandoned garage and killed her, shooting her in the chest and head. There was medical evidence that the victim had been beaten once or more during her captivity.

The defendant was arrested at his home that afternoon while he was washing the trunk of his car. Early the next morning he gave a statement that was transcribed by a court reporter. In the statement, the defendant admitted to kidnaping, robbing and shooting the victim.

https://law.justia.com/cases/illinois/supreme-court/1983/53240-6.html

Raymond Stewart Executed For 6 Illinois Murders

Raymond Stewart was a spree killer who was executed by the State of Illinois for six murders committed during a week

According to court documents Raymond Stewart reign of terror began with murder of Willie Fredd who apparently witnessed Stewart committing a robbery years earlier. 20-year-old Albert Pearson would also be murdered at the same time. Kevin Kaiser, 18, would be murdered the next day and Kenny Foust, 35, would be murdered soon after. Richard Boeck, 21, and Donald Rains, 26, would be murdered during a robbery in Wisconsin to end his reign of terror

Raymond Stewart would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Raymond Stewart would be executed by lethal injection on September 18 1996

Raymond Stewart Photos

Raymond Stewart Case

During the 14 years that convicted killer Ray Lee Stewart has been warehoused on Illinois’ Death Row, he hasn’t provided even a clue about the bitterly cold days in January 1981 when he carried out six execution-style murders in the Rockford area.

And through it all, Stewart’s silence has only aggravated the pain felt by the victims’ families, many of whom have struggled to understand how and why their loved ones crossed paths with this brutal handgun-wielding killer.

They got what must pass for an answer 10 days ago, when a remorseful-sounding Stewart came forward–in anticipation of his scheduled execution Wednesday–by sending an audiotape to the mother of a man he killed inside a shopping mall electronics store.

In a 15-minute recorded diatribe, Stewart provided a disturbing glimpse of his hatred for whites, a race he blames for murdering two of his boyhood idols, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy.

“I was there to get back at Caucasians for what they had done,” Stewart, a 9th-grade dropout, said on the tape.

That hatred, he said, prompted him to kill four of his six victims during a seemingly random crime spree that lasted six days and terrorized the Rockford-area community for more than a month.

“The victims had not done anything to me,” confessed Stewart, 44, who is housed at the Pontiac Correctional Center.

“It was as if I was playing games with the police. In my way of thinking,” he reasoned on the tape, “I deserve the death penalty.”

Yet, even as Stewart suggests that his hatred of whites was his motive, his explanation is not complete, because his first two victims were black.

No matter his intentions, Stewart does express remorse for his actions.

“All these crimes were morally and legally wrong,” Stewart said on the tape. “I want to apologize.”

Stewart will be transported to Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet early Tuesday, where he is scheduled to die by lethal injection shortly after midnight for murdering four people in Rockford and two others in nearby Beloit, Wis.

Before his execution, Stewart has asked to pray with Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the religious leader for Catholics in the Chicago area who only last month announced he was dying of terminal cancer and has only months to live.

In a statement issued Monday morning, Gov. Jim Edgar refused to stay Stewart’s execution. There appeared to be no compelling reason to intervene, he said.

Word of the governor’s decision came as welcome news to many of the victims’ families, who said they viewed Stewart’s prison recording as a feeble attempt to help him avoid the death penalty.

In the tape, Stewart said he killed his first two victims, both African-Americans, because one, a store owner, once implicated him in a crime in the 1970s. The other, a store employee, was shot because he tried to run, Stewart said.

He was on his way to kill his mother’s landlord on the seventh day of his spree, Stewart said, but a mysterious voice told him to stop shooting people while he was just blocks away from the intended victim’s home.

“This tape isn’t going to get Ray Lee any sympathy,” said Clara Rains, 65, whose son Donald Rains, 26, was gunned down inside a Beloit Radio Shack store.

Stewart’s sister, Faith Crocker, said although her brother’s actions are inexcusable, he should be spared the death penalty.

His brutal behavior stems from a violent childhood he experienced while growing up in Burlington, N.C., and later in the Rockford area, she added. Her father often physically and sexually abused his nine children, she said.

When Stewart was 14, his father threw him out of the house and told him to never come back, she said. To survive, Stewart dropped out of high school and drifted from one odd job to another.

Stewart spent six years during the 1970s in prison or in jail for various armed robbery convictions and thefts.

Last week, Stewart’s attorney, Joshua Sachs, made a last-ditch appearance before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, seeking clemency for Stewart.

Sachs argued the Rockford jury that sentenced Stewart to death in 1981 was never given proper instructions by the judge.

Edgar subsequently denied the petition.

On Jan. 27, 1981, at the age of 29, Stewart began to carry out what Rockford authorities have called the most violent six days in the city’s history.

“The people in this town were beside themselves,” said Delbert Peterson, Rockford’s former police chief.

The incidents began inside Fredd’s Grocery Store, a tiny market on Rockford’s west side, where police discovered the bodies of Willie Fredd, 54, and his stock boy, Albert Pearson, 20.

Each of them had been shot about five times in the head with a .38-caliber revolver.

The next day, service station attendant Kevin Kaiser, 18, was found murdered in a similar fashion inside a gasoline station 2 miles away.

Within 24 hours, Kenny Foust, a 35-year-old attendant at a second service station, was found with numerous gunshots to his upper body.

The spree ended a few miles away in a Beloit shopping mall, where Richard Boeck, 21, and Donald Rains, 26, were both found shot in the head inside a Radio Shack.

Constance Mitchell of Rockford said she has finally come to grips with the murder of her son, Albert Pearson. A long-distance telephone conversation with Stewart three years ago helped convince her that Stewart was mentally deranged at the time of the shooting, she said.

She even has forgiven Stewart for what he did.

“Ray Lee did something very hurtful to me,” said Mitchell, who in recent years has spoken out against the death penalty.

“I must learn to forgive him or I will carry this pain with me until I die. Killing Ray Lee,” she said pointedly, “will accomplish nothing.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1996-09-17-9609170158-story.html

Durlyn Eddmonds Executed For Ricky Miller Murder

Durlyn Eddmonds was executed by the State of Illinois for the murder of Ricky Miller

According to court documents Durlyn Eddmonds would lure nine year old Ricky Miller into his apartment where the little boy would be sexually assaulted and murdered

Durlyn Eddmonds would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Durlyn Edmonds would be executed by lethal injection on November 19 1997

Durlyn Eddmonds Photos

Durlyn Eddmonds Case

A convicted rapist who lured a 9-year-old boy to his apartment and killed him was executed by injection early Wednesday, an hour after a jewelry store thief who killed two men was put to death. It was the second double execution in Illinois since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Durlyn Eddmonds, 45, who was convicted of killing the boy who had gone to his apartment for help after being raped, did not make a final statement before he was put to death. About an hour earlier, Walter Stewart, 42, died in similar fashion. “I love Jesus Christ my Lord,” Stewart said before the lethal dose of drugs entered his system.

Prosecutors said Eddmonds saw the boy, who had just been raped by two other men, covered in blood and feces in the alley below his Chicago apartment the morning of Oct. 27, 1977. He summoned the boy to his apartment. Eddmonds, who had three prior rape convictions, cleaned the boy with a wet cloth and toilet tissue, laid a sheet of plastic on the bed and began to sodomize him. The weight of Eddmonds’ body smothered the boy. Defense attorney Richard Cunningham had argued against an execution, saying Eddmonds suffers from schizophrenia. “He tried to resuscitate him,” said Cunningham, who represented Eddmonds since his first appeal. “He’s not very articulate, but he has great shame and great guilt about everything.”

On a February afternoon in 1980, Stewart walked into Empire Jewelers in the Chicago suburb of Berwyn posing as a customer. He came back several hours later with a revolver, grabbed $40,000 worth of watches, bracelets and rings and opened fire. Danilo Rodico, 39, and Thomas Pavlopoulos, 27, were killed. Prosecutors said Stewart would have killed a woman and a 9-year-old girl hiding behind a counter had he not run out of ammunition. They said he later told the sister of one of the victims: “So what? I wish it had been your mother.”

https://ydnhistorical.library.yale.edu/?a=d&d=YDN19971120-01.2.32&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN——-

Walter Stewart Executed For 2 Illinois Murders

Walter Stewart was executed by the State of Illinois for a double murder

According to court documents Walter Stewart would rob a jewelry store and in the process of the armed robbery would shoot three people with two dying from their injuries: Danilo Rodica and Thomas Pavlopoulos. Stewart would be arrested immediately upon leaving the store

Walter Stewart would be convicted and sentenced to death

Walter Stewart would be executed by lethal injection on November 19 1997

Walter Stewart Case

Two convicted murderers have been put to death by lethal injection in a double execution by the state of Illinois. Durlyn Eddmonds, who raped and murdered a 9-year-old boy in 1977, and Walter Stewart, who killed two people during a jewelry store robbery in 1980, were pronounced dead early this morning at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet.

In the second execution Eddmonds, who made no final statement, took two heaving breaths and gurgled briefly four minutes after being administered a lethal injection. He was pronounced dead by the coroner at 1:35 a.m. CST. Three members of Eddmonds’ family were present at the execution but none of them watched the exercise. The 45-year-old Eddmonds was given a sedative Tuesday. He spent his final hours phoning family members and watching television. Earlier this morning, Stewart was pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m. In his final words Stewart said, ‘I love Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. ‘ He then took two deep breaths prior to being declared dead.

No members of Stewart’s family nor family members of the victims were present at the execution. The 42-year-old Stewart was offered a sedative but declined. He also declined a religious service although he requested and received a Bible Tuesday night. Gov. Jim Edgar rejected clemency petitions for Eddmonds and Stewart late Tuesday, saying he thinks the two men deserved to die for their crimes. Eddmonds and Stewart were the ninth and 10th people put to death in Illinois since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977. —

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1997/11/19/Illinois-executes-2-convicted-murderers/1906879915600/

Lloyd Hampton Executed For Roy Pendleton Murder

Lloyd Hampton was executed by the State of Illinois for the murder of Roy Pendleton

According to court documents Lloyd Hampton would torture and murder Roy Pendleton in a hotel room that Pendleton called home

Lloyd Hampton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Lloyd Hampton would be executed by lethal injection on January 21 1998

Lloyd Hampton Case

Lloyd Wayne Hampton, who five years ago forced his execution to be called off at the last minute by filing an appeal, was put to death by lethal injection early Wednesday at Stateville Correctional Center outside Joliet.

Hampton, the 11th person executed under Illinois’ 1977 death penalty law, went to his death accepting full responsibility for his criminal acts.

“I offer no excuses for the things I have done or have not done,” he said Tuesday.”The reasons are irrelevant.

“I’ve been running from myself since I was a small boy in Texas, and my 44 years have been filled with intense anger and rage. I blame no one but myself, and I hope my loved ones will forgive me for the sorrow I have caused them. If God feels I am worthy of his forgiveness, I’ll soon be with my grandparents, brother and daughter.”

The Texas-born drifter confessed in 1990 to torturing, robbing and murdering a 69-year-old widower in a Downstate motel room. Hampton told a judge he wanted to be executed and waived his right to all but one appeal.

He wrote letters to Madison County prosecutors promising to kill a jail guard if he were not executed, and he told court officials that he enjoyed killing Roy E. “Jasper” Pendleton and felt no remorse

But after visiting with his sister and several friends hours before his first scheduled execution on Nov. 11, 1992, Hampton expressed a change of heart and had his court-appointed attorney file an appeal. That put the execution on hold.

Two attorneys, one of whom is a board member of the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty, visited with Hampton on Tuesday. No members of Hampton’s family had asked to witness the 12:01 a.m. execution, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Nic Howell.

Condemned prisoners traditionally are allowed to choose a last meal, but Hampton wanted only Coca-Cola and unfiltered Camel cigarettes. In 1992, he requested coffee and cigarettes.

On Feb. 8, 1990, Hampton gained access to Pendleton’s motel room by asking to use the bathroom. Pendleton had been preparing to make a trip to Las Vegas to visit his dying brother.

Lloyd Hampton tied the retired janitor with ropes and a nylon dog leash. He taped his mouth shut and tried to suffocate him. He burned his eyelids with a cigarette. He stabbed him in the forehead and left the butcher knife protruding from Pendleton’s neck.

After leaving with the victim’s suitcase, microwave and a $500 check that he forced Pendleton to make out to him, Hampton drove to a bar, where he tried to cash the check and bought everyone a round of drinks.

He was arrested the next day at a truck stop in Troy, driving Pendleton’s car

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-01-21-9801210364-story.html