Douglas Turner Murders 9 In Montana

Douglas Turner was a sixteen year old teen killer from Montana who would murder three people and then end up on Montana death row for killing six more inside of prison

According to court documents Douglas Turner would shoot to death his neighbors James Brooks, Ora Brooks, and Sharon Brooks. Turner would be convicted of the three murders and sentenced to one hundred years in prison

In the next few years Douglas Turner would murder five inmates in a prison riot

Douglas Turner and fellow inmate William Jay Gollehon would beat to death another inmate Gerald Pileggi. For this latest prison murder Turner and Gollehon would be sentenced to death

William Jay Gollehon remains on Montana death row

Douglas Turner would take his own life in July 2003

Douglas Turner Case

Death row inmate Douglas Turner was found hanging dead in his maximum security cell at Montana State Prison early Tuesday morning.

Guards doing their routine rounds of the building found Turner, 31, hanging from a part of his cell around 4:15 a.m. Tuesday, said Cheryl Bolton, a prison spokeswoman.

“It looks like an apparent suicide,” Bolton said.

Turner was pronounced dead Tuesday morning by the Powell County coroner who was called to the prison. His body was taken to the state crime lab in Missoula for an autopsy, which is required any time an inmate dies alone in prison, Bolton said.

Turner was a nine-time murderer who spent almost half his short life behind bars. He killed for the first time in 1987 — less than a month after his 16th birthday — when he shot dead three neighbors in his hometown of Glendive. Although not legally an adult, Turner was sentenced to 100 years at the state prison in Deer Lodge. Two years later, he and another inmate, William Jay Gollehon, beat to death fellow prisoner Gerald Pileggi with a baseball bat while the three were recreating in the prison yard.

Turner was sentenced to death for Pileggi’s murder and transferred to the prison’s highest-security building.

Less than year later, Turner took part in the 1991 deadly riot at the building, killing five other inmates. He was sentenced to life for the murder

Just how long Turner’s life would have been was up in the air. He had no execution date, Bolton said, and his latest appeal of his death sentence are still pending before the Montana Supreme Court.

Many details of the death have not been released. Bolton said she wouldn’t say what was in his cell because the death is still under investigation. Neither would she say if Turner had ever tried to kill himself before or if he was on a suicide watch at the time of his death, citing medical confidentiality.

In recent years, she said, Turner was not known as an unruly inmate. He had not received any disciplinary write-ups in the last seven years and he was not being punished for bad behavior at the time of his death.

Turner’s life was isolated. He was locked down in his one-man cell most of the time. He ate meals in his cell. He had not been outside the prison in some time, Bolton said. Condemned inmates are allowed out of their cells only to shower and to recreate in outdoor cages or a small internal day room for an hour-and-a-half every other day. Turner rarely ventured into the cages, Bolton said.

In Glendive, where his mother lives, Turner is still known as an infamous criminal.

“As far as I know, he is the most prolific murderer I’ve heard of in the state,” said Dawson County Attorney Scott Herring.

His family is expected to handle the funeral, Bolton said, but if that changes, the prison will bury him in a special part of the Deer Lodge cemetery reserved for deceased inmates.

https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/9-time-killer-hanged-in-prison-cell/article_3ebc026d-96fc-5093-b052-51e10f03d4d7.html

Terry Langford Executed For 2 Montana Murders

Terry Langford was executed by the State of Montana for a double murder

According to court documents Langford would break into the home of Ned and Celene Blackwood. Langford would murder the couple and then rob the home and flee

Langford would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Langford would murder a fellow inmate during a prison riot

Terry Langford would be executed by lethal injection on February 24 1998

Terry Langford Photos

Terry Langford - Montana

Terry Langford Case

A drifter who came to Montana to become a mountain man and wound up murdering a couple was executed Tuesday morning, taking any hope of an explanation for the killings to his grave.

In the nine years Terry Allen Langford was on death row, he never said why he tied up and killed Ned and Celene Blackwood at their ranch home in 1988.Langford, 31, was executed by injection after nine years of swinging back and forth between resignation and court appeals.

It was only the state’s second execution since 1943.

https://www.deseret.com/1998/2/24/19365420/montana-executes-drifter-for-1988-murder-of-couple

David Dawson Executed For 3 Montana Murders

David Dawson was executed by the State of Montana for a triple murder

According to court documents David Dawson would break into a hotel room where he would gag the four people inside and three of which would die from their injuries: Monica and David Rodstein, along with their 11 year old son Andrew. A fifteen year old girl would survive the attack

David Dawson was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

David Dawson was executed by lethal injection on August 11 2006

David Dawson Photos

David Dawson execution

David Dawson FAQ

When Was David Dawson Executed

David Dawson was executed on August 11 2006

David Dawson Case

Convicted killer David Dawson, who fought for two years to end his appeals and be put to death, was executed early Friday morning by lethal injection at Montana State Prison. Dawson, who was convicted of killing three members of a Billings family in 1986, was pronounced dead at 12:06 a.m. Dawson was the first person executed in Montana since 1998.

Legal questions hung over David Dawson’s execution until only hours before the three-time murderer was set to be put to death early Friday morning. Clarity came just before 5 p.m. Thursday seven hours before Dawson’s scheduled execution when the Montana Supreme Court denied a request to postpone the death to allow for a lawsuit over whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. The seven-member court unanimously rejected an effort to stall the execution, offering no explanation and writing that they would not reconsider the order.

Dawson kidnapped and murdered three members of a Billings family including an 11-year-old boy in 1986. Only the family’s teenaged daughter survived. She was rescued by Billings police officers, who arrested Dawson and found the bodies of her family. Dawson two years ago stopped all efforts to commute or suspend his death sentence and has disavowed the latest effort.

A coalition of groups led by American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, but including church groups, lawmakers and others argued that the way Montana practices lethal injection could expose the condemned to excruciating pain before death, violating the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The groups first asked the Montana Supreme Court to stop the execution on July 11, a month before the execution. That case began a long legal road. The Montana Supreme Court denied that initial request, prompting the groups to ask the high court to reconsider. That effort, too, failed.

Next, the groups took the case to federal court in Missoula. A U.S. District Court judge also denied their effort. Finally, the case wound up in state District Court in Helena for a hearing Wednesday, just 35 hours before Dawson was sentenced to die. Judge Jeffrey Sherlock also denied the case Thursday morning, prompting the appeal to the Montana Supreme Court where the case originally began almost a month ago.

At issue were several arguments. The civil liberties groups raised the concern that if the three drugs administered in lethal injection were improperly used, the condemned would not be unconscious at the time of death and would experience the pain caused by the lethal drug cocktail. One of the major debates was whether the groups, who do not represent Dawson and have no ties to him, can bring a suit arguing Dawson’s constitutional rights may be violated when Dawson himself has chosen the execution.

In the end, Ron Waterman, the Helena attorney representing the groups, said he didn’t think the case would be appealed further. But he said Thursday’s Supreme Court decision and Dawson’s death is not the end. “This issue will not stop, and it will not go away,’’ he said.

Waterman said he anticipated future challenges involving the three remaining men under a death sentence in Montana to challenge Montana’s lethal injection method. And ultimately, he said, courts will show that “putting Mr. Dawson to death …is unconstitutional.’’ One option for the groups is to try to change Montana law regarding lethal injection at the upcoming 2007 Legislature. Waterman said he was skeptical such an effort may succeed, but had higher hopes for a future court case.

He said capital punishment doesn’t really deter crimes, but is done out of retribution. “The difficulty of an eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-tooth retribution is that all too often all the parties become partially blind,’’ he said. “I still continue to believe that retribution has no place in the American system of justice.’’

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/08/11/montana_top/a01081106_01.txt

William Jay Gollehon Montana Prison Murder

William Jay Gollehon and Douglas Turner were sentenced to death for the murder of a fellow inmate

According to court documents William Jay Gollehon and Douglas Turner would beat to death Gerald Pileggi with baseball bats

William Jay Gollehon was already serving a life sentence for murder when the murder occurred

Douglas Turner had already been convicted of eight murders

Both William Jay Gollehon and Douglas Turner would be convicted and sentenced to death

Douglas Turner would take his own life in July 2003

William Jay Gollehon Photos

William Jay Gollehon montana

William Jay Gollehon FAQ

Where Is William Jay Gollehon Now

William Jay Gollehon is incarcerated at Montana State Prison

William Jay Gollehon Case

On September 2, 1990, the badly beaten body of inmate Gerald Pileggi was found lying in the exercise yard of the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Montana.1 Several witnesses had seen inmates William Gollehon and Douglas Turner both strike Pileggi multiple times with baseball bats. An autopsy revealed that Pileggi died from massive head injuries, including a blow to the top of the head which had caved in part of his skull, as well as a blow to the side of his face which had collapsed his forehead, torn his brain, and ruptured his eyeball.

Gollehon and Turner were jointly charged with deliberate homicide for the beating death of Pileggi. The information was later amended to add an alternative count of deliberate homicide by accountability .2 The difference between these counts, as explained by the Montana Supreme Court, is that the “charge of deliberate homicide by accountability allowed the jury to convict both men involved in the deliberate homicide without having to make the determination of who struck the fatal blow.” State v. Gollehon, 864 P.2d 249, 261-62 (Mont.1993) (“Gollehon I ”). After a joint trial, the jury found Gollehon and Turner guilty of deliberate homicide by accountability. Both were sentenced to death.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1545495.html

Douglas Turner Suicidee

Death row inmate Douglas Turner was found hanging dead in his maximum security cell at Montana State Prison early Tuesday morning.

Guards doing their routine rounds of the building found Turner, 31, hanging from a part of his cell around 4:15 a.m. Tuesday, said Cheryl Bolton, a prison spokeswoman.

“It looks like an apparent suicide,” Bolton said.

Turner was pronounced dead Tuesday morning by the Powell County coroner who was called to the prison. His body was taken to the state crime lab in Missoula for an autopsy, which is required any time an inmate dies alone in prison, Bolton said.

Turner was a nine-time murderer who spent almost half his short life behind bars. He killed for the first time in 1987 — less than a month after his 16th birthday — when he shot dead three neighbors in his hometown of Glendive. Although not legally an adult, Turner was sentenced to 100 years at the state prison in Deer Lodge. Two years later, he and another inmate, William Jay Gollehon, beat to death fellow prisoner Gerald Pileggi with a baseball bat while the three were recreating in the prison yard.

Turner was sentenced to death for Pileggi’s murder and transferred to the prison’s highest-security building.

Less than year later, Turner took part in the 1991 deadly riot at the building, killing five other inmates. He was sentenced to life for the murder

Just how long Turner’s life would have been was up in the air. He had no execution date, Bolton said, and his latest appeal of his death sentence are still pending before the Montana Supreme Court.

Many details of the death have not been released. Bolton said she wouldn’t say what was in his cell because the death is still under investigation. Neither would she say if Turner had ever tried to kill himself before or if he was on a suicide watch at the time of his death, citing medical confidentiality.

In recent years, she said, Turner was not known as an unruly inmate. He had not received any disciplinary write-ups in the last seven years and he was not being punished for bad behavior at the time of his death.

Turner’s life was isolated. He was locked down in his one-man cell most of the time. He ate meals in his cell. He had not been outside the prison in some time, Bolton said. Condemned inmates are allowed out of their cells only to shower and to recreate in outdoor cages or a small internal day room for an hour-and-a-half every other day. Turner rarely ventured into the cages, Bolton said.

In Glendive, where his mother lives, Turner is still known as an infamous criminal.

“As far as I know, he is the most prolific murderer I’ve heard of in the state,” said Dawson County Attorney Scott Herring.

His family is expected to handle the funeral, Bolton said, but if that changes, the prison will bury him in a special part of the Deer Lodge cemetery reserved for deceased inmates.

https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/9-time-killer-hanged-in-prison-cell/article_3ebc026d-96fc-5093-b052-51e10f03d4d7.html

Ronald Allen Smith Murders 2 In Montana

Ronald Allen Smith was sentenced to death by the State of Montana for the murders of two teenagers

According to court documents Ronald Allen Smith would pick up two teens who were hitchhiking, Harvey Mad Man, 23, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, were forced into the woods and would be fatally shot

Ronald Allen Smith would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Ronald Allen Smith was born in Canada and the Canadian Government has requested clemency for him

Ronald Allen Smith Photos

Ronald Allen Smith montana

Ronald Allen Smith FAQ

Where is Ronald Allen Smith Now

Ronald Allen Smith is incarcerated at Montana State Prison

Ronald Allen Smith Case

Despite good news last month, when a bill to resume executions in Montana was unexpectedly defeated, the Canadian on death row in that state is in a sombre mood.

Smith, originally from Red Deer, Alta., has been facing capital punishment since 1983 for killing two young Montana men in 1982.

“I thought we were screwed,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press from Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Mont.

“I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that this wouldn’t be approved. Once my daughter found out, I explained to her which road we were going down and what the probable outcomes were going to be. I was that sure that it was over.

All executions have been stayed in Montana since 2015 because the state requires the use of an ultra-fast-acting barbiturate, which is no longer available. There hasn’t been an execution in Montana since 2006.

Montana’s house of representatives passed a bill in February that would have amended protocol to include any substance in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death. But the senate voted it down 26-24.

The execution issue is likely to arise again in two years when the state legislature reconvenes.

“Obviously, I’m happy about it, but at the same time it keeps running through the back of my head, ‘Oh crap. I’m stuck sitting around here again,”‘ Smith sighed.

“A lot of people look at it and say, ‘Well at least you’re alive,’ but I’m really not. I’m just sitting around like a bump on a log is all I’m doing, and after almost 40 years of this, anything is preferable.”

Smith, 63, rephrased his response when asked if he would prefer to be executed.

“Well, maybe not preferable, but I wouldn’t be bothered by it. As soon as I heard what was going on, I accepted it. I went, ‘OK, cool. I don’t have to deal with this crap anymore.’

“I was worried about my family because they were going to take it hard. Personally, I don’t care. I’ve hit that point where I’ve done enough of this. If they’re (legislators) not going to cut me a break, then go ahead and do away with me.”

Smith and Rodney Munro, both high on LSD and alcohol, shot and killed two Indigenous cousins near East Glacier, Mont., in 1982. They admitted to marching Harvey Mad Man, 23, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, into the woods by a highway. They shot each man in the head with a sawed-off .22-calibre rifle

Court heard that Smith and Munro wanted to steal the victims’ car. Smith also said at the time that he wanted to know what it was like to kill someone.

He was initially offered a plea deal that would have taken the death penalty off the table, but he rejected it. He pleaded guilty and asked to be put to death, but later changed his mind. He has had five execution dates set over the years. Each has been overturned.

The victims’ families have continued to push for Smith to be executed.

Munro took the plea bargain, was eventually transferred to a prison in Canada, and has been free since 1998.

“He’s been out 23 years and doing well and I wish him all the very best. Had I taken that plea deal, then I’d have been out a long time ago. It’s hard not to have that in the back of your mind on a pretty regular basis.”

Smith said he’s content with paying for his crimes, but would like to be transferred to a prison in Canada, where he has a daughter, two sisters, grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

“I’m getting pretty much what I deserve for the crime I committed,” he said. “If I was in a position where I could see my family on a constant basis, then leave me locked up. I don’t care.

“It is what it is. I committed the crime.”

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-on-death-row-says-execution-may-be-preferable-to-endless-prison-time