Wisezah Buckman was sentenced to death by the State of North Carolina for the murder of four people during a prison escape attempt
According to court documents Wisezah Buckman was attempting to escape from Pasquotank Correctional Institution in 2017 along with other inmates including Mikel Brady. During the attempt four prison workers would be murdered: prison sewing plant manager Veronica Darden, prison maintenance worker Geoffrey Howe and correctional officers Justin Smith and Wendy Shannon
Mikel Brady was convicted and sentenced to death
Wisezah Buckman would be convicted and sentenced to death
Wisezah Buckman Now
Offender Number:
1120630
Inmate Status:
ACTIVE
Probation/Parole/Post Release Status:
INACTIVE
Gender:
MALE
Race:
BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN
Ethnic Group:
NOT HISPANIC/LATINO
Birth Date:
11/12/1987
Age:
35
Current Location:
GRANVILLE CI
Wisezah Buckman Case
Following a month-long trial, Wisezah Buckman, was sentenced to death in Dare County Superior Court on Nov. 2 on first degree murder charges for the killings of four Pasquotank Correctional Institution employees during a failed 2017 escape attempt.
Buckman was charged in the case along with Seth J. Frasier, Mikel Brady and Johnathan M. Monk. Other than Buckman, the only other defendant to be tried thus far is Brady, who was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to death.
According to the Coastland Times, Buckman’s defense teams plans on appealing both the verdict and the sentence.
On Nov. 3, District Attorney Jeff Cruden released the following statement.
In a trial that began on October 4, 2023, a Dare County jury yesterday returned sentences of death for defendant Wisezah Buckman in the murders of Justin Smith, Wendy Shannon and Geoffrey Howe. The same jury returned a sentence of life, without the possibility of parole in the murder of Veronica Darden. The trial was presided over by Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Jerry R. Tillett.
District attorney Jeff Cruden stated: “There are no winners in this case. The families of the victims had to relive again the brutal slayings of their loved ones, but they have been resolute from the beginning to ensure that justice is served in each case. I am especially proud of my prosecution team, Assistant District Attorney’s Kim Pellini and Alexis Massengill and Legal Assistant Hannah Gilroy. Their tireless effort, coupled with the exemplary work from the law enforcement community, ensured that the jury would have the information they needed to make this difficult decision. I commend the jurors for their willingness to serve and trust in the justice system to return the ultimate punishment for the murder of another human being.”
One of four suspects charged in the deadly 2017 Pasquotank, North Carolina prison break was given the death penalty Thursday after a jury convicted him last month.
Wisezah Buckman was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. Five years ago, Buckman and three other inmates tried to break out of the Pasquotank Correctional Institution. Four prison workers were killed after the inmates violently attacked them.
None of the inmates succeeded in escaping.
Buckman’s trial was originally planned for March 2020 but got pushed back because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Dare County court clerk tells 13News Now that Buckman was convicted in October, following a nearly month-long trial. On Thursday, he was sentenced to death for three of the murder convictions, and life without parole on the fourth conviction.
He is the second inmate to be convicted for his role in the deadly prison break attempt. Another inmate, Mikel Brady, was also sentenced to death after being found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder back in 2019.
Curtis Allgier is a killer from Utah who would be convicted in the prison murder of Correctional Officer Stephen Anderson
According to court documents Curtis Allgier was an inmate in Utah when he was escorted to an outside hospital, University Of Utah, by Correctional Officer Stephen Anderson. Allgier who had been complaining of back pain was scheduled for an MRI. Once he was unshackled Allgier would attack Stephen Anderson and would grab his gun and shot the Correctional Officer twice before fleeing
Curtis Allgier would be arrested hours later, be convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole
Curtis Allgier Now
Curtis Allgier is not in the Utah Department Of Corrections. Considering he murdered a prison guard this is not a big surprise
Curtis Allgier Videos
Curtis Allgier Case
Curtis Allgier turned to the family of the man he murdered, crying incessantly.
“I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” he said Wednesday during his sentencing hearing. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody. It was an accident. … That guy didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve it.”
Allgier told Stephen Anderson’s family that what happened that day was a mistake — an accident as a result of a “split second” decision. But during his 30-minute speech, he also, at times, focused on himself and his own difficulties. He ranted, cursed, criticized the attorneys who represented him and questioned the evidence against him.
A son and daughter of the slain corrections officer chose not to address Allgier, focusing instead on their father.
“He was the greatest man I’ve ever known,” Anderson’s son, Shawn Anderson, said. “He was always very kind and looking for ways to help others. He was a wonderful husband, wonderful father. … He loved my mom so much and he loved his family.”
The sentence from 3rd District Judge Paul Maughan was almost a foregone conclusion, as it had been part of the plea agreement Allgier accepted when he pleaded guilty to aggravated murder on Oct. 3. The plea deal removed the possibility of the death penalty and required Allgier to plead guilty to all of the charges leveled against him stemming from the escape that resulted in the murder of Anderson, 60.
Maughn ordered Allgier to serve the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. He also sentenced the man to serve consecutive terms totaling at least 36 additional years for other charges.
Allgier was adamant that the three attempted murder charges against him were “absurd.” He said he agreed to plead “no contest” to those charges and guilty to all other charges as soon as he was told this was the resolution Anderson’s widow desired.
“When you wanted this case over, I didn’t drag it out,” he said. “Just because I’ve got tattoos on my face and I’m proud of my race, I’m not some violent monster.”
Allgier — a white supremacist most recognized for the tattoos that cover nearly his entire body, including his eyelids — shot and killed Anderson June 25, 2007, after Anderson had escorted Allgier from the prison to University Hospital. Allgier said Wednesday that he went in for an MRI and Anderson didn’t have the flexible handcuffs typically used in that setting and unshackled him completely.
“I never wanted to harm that guy,” Allgier said. “I was just going to walk out the door. But for some reason, I decided to tell him I was going to walk out the door. I said, ‘Your $15 an hour isn’t worth it. You go home to your family, I’m going to go home to mine.'”
There was a struggle, he said, and Anderson’s gun went off.
After shooting Anderson with the officer’s own weapon, Curtis Allgier fled the hospital on foot and stole a vehicle before leading police on a high-speed chase on I-80, I-15 and I-215 at speeds exceeding 100 mph. When the vehicle’s tires were spiked, Allgier continued to flee on foot, eventually running into an Arby’s restaurant at 1685 S. Redwood Road. There, Allgier pointed a gun at the head of an Arby’s employee before a patron was able to wrest the gun from him.
“I’ve shed as much tears over this as everybody else,” he told Anderson’s family. “If you forgive me, that’s good. And if you don’t, I understand.”
Later, the judge offered his own comments about Allgier’s words, saying he didn’t buy his explanations.
Maughan told the family they might not understand why the case took so long and said part of the reason is because the justice system is “weighed heavily in favor of defendants.” He pointed out that Allgier pleaded guilty, despite his complaints about the charges Wednesday.
“Today he has apologized to you and insulted you by trying to take back what he pleaded to, by trying to rationalize and justify,” the judge said. “I don’t find Mr. Allgier’s version of events credible. I don’t find it credible at all.”
Anderson’s daughter, Sherrie Hardy, said she was happy with the sentence that was handed down. She said she has “no ill feelings” toward Allgier and does not see the point or value in dwelling on how her father died.
“It would ruin everything, the good memories I have, so I choose not to,” she said. “I feel really good about the outcome and am glad it’s finally here.”
In court, she praised her father as a man who loved his wife, children and grandchildren and said each grandchild was certain they were his favorite. He built snowmobile and sleigh ride trails and zip lines for them to play on.
“If something broke, he could fix it. If we could dream it, he could build it,” she said. “It is impossible to replace a man like my father.”
Prosecutor Vincent Meister said Anderson was known for treating the inmates with “dignity and respect” and his death was “anything but an accident.” He called Allgier a selfish person who thought only of himself.
“He decided what he wanted was more important,” Meister said of Curtis Allgier’s actions.
Defense attorney Dusty Kawai reiterated multiple times that Allgier had a good case that his client believed he could have presented and won at trial.
“He chose to waive those rights to go to trial only out of respect to the Anderson family,” Kawai said. “This is about a mistake Mr. Allgier made that led to the death of a very good man.”
He, too, disputed that Curtis Allgier attempted to harm anyone else, including police officers involved in the chase and those at the Arby’s.
But Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said the evidence presented at a preliminary hearing supported all the charges. He said prosecutors would not have moved forward with the case if they had not believed they could win.
“This was not an accident,” Gill said. “It was a crime and it was plead out as a crime and sentenced as a crime.”
He agreed with the judge that many of Curtis Allgier’s comments were insulting, but most urgently, he offered praise to Anderson’s family.
“This family is an incredible family and they are close, they are supportive of each other,” Gill said. “They are not vindictive. They have sought out closure and a measure of justice.”
In addition to life without parole, Maughan ordered Curtis Allgier to serve five additional terms of six years to life in prison for aggravated escape, aggravated robbery and three counts of attempted murder; one five-years-to-life sentence for disarming a peace officer; and a one-to15-year term for possession of a firearm by a restricted person — all to be served consecutively. Essentially, it was a life prison sentence plus a minimum of 36 additional years.
Shawn Anderson said he felt Curtis Allgier was trying to be sincere in his apology. He, too, said he harbors no negative feelings.
“I feel very comforted having this be over,” he said.
Tommy Holland is a killer from Indiana who was convicted in a prison murder
According to court documents Tommy Holland was serving two life sentences at the Pendleton Correctional Facility when he would stab to death Clifford Baggett which was captured on surveillance cameras. Holland who was previously convicted of killing two people during a grocery store robbery would initially tell authorities unless he was given the death penalty he would keep killing
However his tone would later change when Tommy Holland would plead guilty to the murder of Clifford Baggett and was sentenced to yet another life without parole sentences which basically ensures he will die behind bars
Tommy Holland Now
DOC Number
138825
First Name
TOMMY
Middle Name
Last Name
HOLLAND
Suffix
Date of Birth
01/1975
Gender
Male
Race
White
Facility/Location
Wabash Valley Long Term Segregation
Earliest Possible Release Date* * Incarcerated individuals scheduled for release on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday are released on Monday. Incarcerated individuals scheduled for release on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday are released on Thursday. Incarcerated individuals whose release date falls on a Holiday are released on the first working day prior to the Holiday.
00/00/0000
Tommy Holland Case
An Indianapolis man was sentenced Monday to life without parole for the 2019 murder of an inmate at the Pendleton Correctional Facility, the third such sentence ensuring he will never leave prison.
Tommy Holland, 46, was sentenced by Madison Circuit Court Division 3 Judge Andrew Hopper through a plea agreement to life without parole and six years for a felon in possession of a dangerous weapon.
Holland entered pleas of guilty to the two charges and, without objection by Deputy Prosecutor Grey Chandler and defense attorney Bryan Williams, was sentenced on the charges.
After Hopper accepted the plea agreement, Holland, under questioning by Williams, said he didn’t intend to appeal the conviction or sentence.
Hopper found as aggravating circumstances that Holland was already serving two life without parole sentences for murder and the fact that he was in the custody of the Department of Correction.
Holland declined to make a statement prior to sentencing.
At one point, Holland had requested the death penalty for the 2019 murder and indicated he “will continue to drop bodies until you give me the death penalty.”
Holland was charged with murder and accused of stabbing Clifford Baggett at the Pendleton Correctional Facility on Aug. 9, 2019.
Surveillance video captured Baggett’s death in cell block H, according to an affidavit of probable cause by Master Trooper Indiana State Police Jeff Carmin.
Holland is seen entering the cell block and holding something near his waistband, according to the affidavit.
Carmin said Holland walks back and forth as if looking for something or someone and then stopping behind a stairwell. Baggett opens a door in front of the stairwell where Holland had stopped where he is then attacked, according to the affidavit.
“The video then shows the suspect pull a weapon from his waistband and attacks the victim at first in the back and then several times in the body as the victim falls to the floor before DOC guards are able to separate the suspect from the victim,” Carmin wrote.
Holland was previously convicted in Marion County in 2015 for the murders of employees at a Mars Hill Supermarket and a Marathon Gas Station.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Department believes Holland is a suspect in two other slayings in that county.
According to court documents Ignacio Cuevas was serving a 45 year sentence for murder at the Walls Unit when he had a number of guns smuggled into the prison within a crate of peaches. Cuevas and two fellow inmates, Fred Gomez Carrasco and Rudolfo Dominguez, would take sixteen people hostage. When they attempted to escape Fred Gomez Carrasco and Rudolfo Dominguez would be fatally shot as well as the two victims Julia Standley and Elizabeth Beseda who were prison employees.
Ignacio Cuevas was convicted and sentenced to death
Ignacio Cuevas would be executed by lethal injection on May 23 1991
Ignacio Cuevas Photos
Ignacio Cuevas Case
The only inmate survivor of the nation’s longest prison siege was executed by injection Thursday for his role in the slaying of a hostage during the 1974 standoff.
Ignacio Cuevas was pronounced dead at 12:18 a.m., 10 minutes after the injection. The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday night denied an application for a stay of execution, referred from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said
Cuevas, represented by lawyers at the Texas Resource Center, sought a stay from U.S. District Judge Norman Black after Texas’ highest appeals court refused Tuesday to intervene in the case.
Cuevas’ attorneys have claimed he was mentally incompetent, and he was denied a fair trial because he could not understand English.
‘I’m going to a beautiful place,’ Cuevas said in his final statement. ‘OK, warden, roll ’em.
Cuevas was the 39th person executed in Texas and the 146th person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976.
Cuevas, 59, was the only inmate survivor of the nation’s longest prison siege. He was convicted for the murder of prison librarian Julia Standley, 43. She was among 16 hostages held by three inmates during the 11-day uprising at the Huntsville unit of the state prison system.
Two other inmates and two hostages were killed and another hostage wounded in the standoff that began July 24, 1974.
Cuevas visited with a prison chaplain shortly after he was transported to a cell near the death chamber at 12:07 p.m., prison spokesman Charles Brown said.
‘His mood appeared calm,’ Brown said, adding Cuevas requested chicken and dumplings, steamed rice, black-eyed peas, sliced bread and iced tea for his last meal.
He planned to wear a light blue shirt, dark blue pants and brown boots to the execution, Brown said.
‘Seventeen years is too long for justice to be done,’ said W.J. Estelle, who was director of the Texas Department of Corrections at the time of the prison siege. ‘I’ve got a lot of scars about it. I think somebody needs to be reminded that there are sons of bitches still like that out there in the population.
The siege began as an escape attempt engineered by south Texas drug kingpin Fred Gomez Carrasco. Carrasco and inmate Rudolpho Dominguez were killed Aug. 3, 1974, as they tried to flee the prison using the hostages as human shields.
The inmates constructed a four-sided shield of portable chalkboards and chained some hostages to the outside of the shield. Each inmate also handcuffed a hostage to himself inside the shield.
As the convicts wheeled the device down a ramp, authorities blasted it with high-pressure water hoses in an attempt to topple the shield. But one hose ruptured, and the shield remained upright.
The result ‘was a calamitous gunfight … something you can never erase from your memory of horrors,’ said Bob Wiatt, a former FBI agent involved in the hostage negotiations.
Two of the hostages were shot point-blank by Carrasco and Dominguez, and Carrasco then shot himself to death. Texas Rangers killed Dominguez as he tried to pull his gun from under the bodies. Cuevas was taken into custody after he fainted.
Evidence showed the bullet that killed Standley was fired from Dominguez’ gun, but Cuevas was tried, convicted and sentenced to death three times for her murder. The first two convictions were overturned on appeal.
Cuevas, a Mexican national from Acapulco, was serving a 45-year sentence for murder with no chance of parole at the time of the prison siege. He has maintained his innocence, but prosecutors argued at trial he knew of the escape plans and understood the hostages might be killed.
According to court documents James Demouchette would rob a Pizza Hut where he would murder 19-year-old Scott Sorrell and 22-year-old Robert “Chuck” White. A third employee would be shot however would survive his injuries
James Demouchette would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
While on death row James would fatally stab another death row inmate, Johnny E. Swift. He would also attack three correctional workers with a knife along with setting numerous fires in the prison
James Demouchette would be executed by lethal injection on September 22 1992
James Demouchette Photos
James Demouchette Case
Texas early Tuesday executed a condemned killer who had a reputation among guards as the ‘meanest man on death row.’
James Demouchette, 37, died from lethal injection at 12:33 a.m. CDT, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied him a stay. Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens indicated they disagreed with the ruling.
Demouchette, the tenth convict executed in Texas this year, had been on death row since August 1977.
During that time, he threw lye in a guard’s face, stabbed an inmate to death, beat and stabbed at least two other inmates, stabbed three guards, twice set fire to his cell, and destroyed a television set and commode.
Prison spokesman Charles Brown said Demouchette’s activities had prompted guards to take special precautions whenever they moved him from one place to another.
‘I guess you can say that when it comes to violence and assaultive tendencies, James is in a class by himself,’ Brown told The Houston Post. ‘If he’s not the meanest man on death row, he certainly looks the part.
On Monday, prison spokesman David Nunnelee declined to comment on Demouchette’s reputation, saying only, ‘I think he’s demonstrated that he isn’t the safest guy to be around.’
A judge sentenced Demouchette to death for the 1976 shooting deaths of a 19-year-old Pizza Hut assistant manager and his 20-year-old roommate, who Demouchette killed during a robbery in a northwest Houston restaurant.
Tuesday, the condemned man had no last words before his execution.
Although the Supreme Court allowed Texas to carry out Demouchette’s death sentence, a state court Monday stayed the execution of fellow condemned inmate Ricardo Guerra, 30, who had been slated to die early Thursday.
The Texas State Court of Appeals in Austin ordered the stay after State District Judge Woody Densen denied a request to postpone the execution by four months.
Densen’s denial prompted criticism from Guerra supporter Alvaro Luna, who called it ‘an outrage,’ and ‘white-racist justice,’ adding, ‘The man is innocent.’
Prosecutors and defense lawyers alike had asked for a later execution date to give them more time to work on Guerra’s appeal.
A court sentenced Guerra to death for killing a Houston policeman in 1982.
A Mexican national, Guerra had moved to Houston only a short while before the slaying, and was an undocumented worker seeking a job at the time of the crime
Guerra claims he is innocent. His supporters and lawyers claim Robert Carrasco Flores, who died in a shootout with police on the day of the killing, actually murdered the policeman.
Flores and Guerra had been driving around together on the day when police officer James Harris stopped their vehicle.
Someone shot Harris and the pair fled, with Flores killed in an ensuing shootout with police.
Guerra’s case has become an increasingly important public cause in Mexico, with President Carlos Salinas de Gortari appealing earlier this year to Texas Gov. Ann Richards to grant clemency.
However, Richards traditionally does not act on clemency requests until an inmate’s appeals have been exhausted.
Mexican Counsel General Francisco Gonzalez, who attended a Monday hearing on the matter, said Mexico ‘wants justice,’ and would do everything in its power to ensure Texas upholds Guerra’s rights.
