Virginia death row | Murder Database

Buddy Justus Executed For Ida Mae Moses Murder

Buddy Justus was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Ida Mae Moses

According to court documents Buddy Justus would break into the residence of Ida Mae Moses, who was due to give birth in two weeks, and would sexually assault and murder the woman

Buddy Justus would also kidnap, sexually assault and murder Rosemary Jackson in Georgia and would kidnap, sexually assault and murder Stephanie Hawkins in Florida

Buddy Justus would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Justus was also sentenced to death in both Georgia and Florida

Buddy Justus would be executed by way of the electric chair on December 13 1990

Buddy Justus Photos

Buddy Justus Case

Buddy Earl Justus, believed to be the only man under a death sentence in three states, was executed Thursday night for the 1978 rape and murder of a pregnant nurse.

Justus, 38, was pronounced dead at 11:06 p.m. EST in the electric chair at the State Penitentiary in downtown Richmond. Justus, who had suspended his final appeals, said in an interview hours earlier he ‘was ready to go to a better place.’

Justus was condemned to die for the Oct. 3, 1978 rape and murder of Ida Mae Moses, a nurse of Ironto, Va., who was 8 months pregnant when Justus broke into her home, sexually assaulted her and shot her in the head.

Justus, who was abused as a child and went on to marry and divorce his foster mother, had asked Gov. L. Douglas Wilder to either commute his sentence to life or watch the execution in person, but Wilder refused.

Justus dined on steak and French fries for a last meal.

As he entered the death chamber Thursday night, Justus nodded twice to the man who had investigated the Moses murder and took his confession, Montgomery County Sheriff Louis Barber.

Prison Chaplain Russ Ford told Justus shortly before a mask was placed over the condemned killer’s face, ‘Be strong. You’ll move on.’

Justus made no final statement.

‘He died with a great deal more dignity than his victim did,’ Barber told media witnesses afterwards inside the chamber.

Justus also was under death sentences in Florida and Georgia for the murders of saleswoman Stephanie Hawkins in Tampa, Fla., and Rosemary Jackson, a housewife in Mountain Park, Ga., before his Oct. 11, 1978 arrest.

His lawyer says Justus suffers from brain damage, but in an interview with Roanoke radio station WFIR, Justus accepted responsibility for the crimes, while citing his history of drug use and an abusive father.

‘I was able to forgive myself. I’m at peace with myself. I’m ready to go to a better place,’ he said. ‘In order to be forgiven, you’ve got to forgive others.

‘I still take the responsibility solely for myself because I wasn’t strong enough to turn away’ and avoid drugs and handle the child abuse, he said. ‘I hold responsibility for my actions because I should have been strong enough to resist those drugs.

He also said he was prepared to die in Virginia’s electric chair though he opposes capital punishment.

‘We are supposed to be a society that’s supposed to be caring … and that to continue capital punishment is taking steps backward. There’s better ways to deal with it than to take lives.’

He said he tried to commit suicide at Mecklenburg Correctional Center several months ago because he felt no useful purpose any longer.

On Wednesday, attorney James Copacino said he persuaded Justus, who has refused to continue his appeal, to allow him to petition the governor for clemency. The petition was based on new tests that reveal the killer suffers from organic brain damage.

‘It’s a real outside shot,’ said Copacino, a Georgetown University law professor. ‘A lot of people disagreed with my decision not to file anything in court on Buddy’s behalf.’

Earlier this week, Wilder, who has refused to intervene in two previous executions this year, indicated he would allow the execution to proceed unless some startling new evidence emerged.

Copacino extended an invitation to Wilder to witness the execution at the State Penitentiary if he were to deny clemency, but the governor rejected it

Justus, the oldest of seven children, was beaten repeatedly by his alcoholic father. At age 13, officials say he intentionally stole a pistol, bicycle and a truck so that welfare officials would remove him from his home.

Buddy Justus would be the 11th person executed in Virginia and the 143rd in the United States since the Supreme Court lifted a ban on capital punishment in 1976.

The execution is scheduled to be the last at the aging penitentiary in downtown Richmond. The prison will be closed at the end of the month and the electric chair moved to the newly constructed Greensville Correctional Center

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/12/14/Justus-executed-for-raping-murdering-pregnant-nurse/3726661150800/

Wilbert Evans Executed For Virginia Officers Murder

Wilbert Evans was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Officer William Gene Truesdale

According to court documents Wilbert Evans was in custody and attempted to escape where he would grab the gun of Deputy Sheriff William Truesdale and fatally shoot the Officer

Wilbert Evans would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Wilbert Evans was executed via the electric chair on October 17 1990

Wilbert Evans Photos

Wilbert Evans Case

The killer of a sheriff’s deputy was executed in Virginia tonight after the United States Supreme Court denied a stay and Gov. L. Douglas Wilder declined a request for clemency.

The inmate, Wilbert Lee Evans, died in the electric chair at the State Penitentiary here shortly after 11 P.M.

Mr. Evans’s execution was the 141st in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, and the 10th in Virginia.

Shooting in Courthouse

Mr. Evans was sentenced to die for shooting Deputy Sheriff William Truesdale to death on Jan. 27, 1981, in the courthouse in Alexandria, N.C.. The deputy was returning him to the jail in Alexandria after a hearing when Mr. Evans grabbed Mr. Truesdale’s gun and shot him.

Mr. Evans was in prison on an assault charge in North Carolina and had been brought to Alexandria to testify against another prisoner.

The Court issued its ruling at 7:30 P.M., with only Justice Thurgood Marshall, who opposes capital punishment in all cases, dissenting.

Justice Marshall said, ”A system of capital punishment that would permit Wilbert Evans’s execution, notwithstanding as-to-now unrefuted evidence showing that death is an improper sentence, is a system that cannot stand.”

His lawyers based their final efforts to save him on his actions during a breakout by six death row inmates at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center in May 1984. Mr. Evans did not join the escapees, and his lawyers contended he had intervened to save guards and nurses from harm.

In a letter hand-delivered to the Governor’s office this afternoon, the lawyers presented evidence from an internal State Police and Corrections Department report on the escape. The letter included excerpts of statements from guards and nurses that Mr. Evans had protected them during the escape. One nurse said he stopped two inmates from molesting her.

None of the inmates who escaped are still at large. Three have been executed; the other three remain on death row

Richard Boggs Executed For Treeby Shaw Murder

Richard Boggs was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Treeby Shaw

According to court documents Richard Boggs would kill a person during an accident and would flee the scene. The next day he would go over to the home of 87 year old Treeby Shaw home and after a couple of cups of tea would attack the woman with a piece of steel before fatally stabbing her

Richard Boggs would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Richard Boggs would be executed by way of the electric chair on July 19 1990

Richard Boggs Photos

Richard Boggs Case

Richard T. Boggs was executed in Virginia’s electric chair tonight for the 1984 murder of an elderly widow he killed to get money for drugs.

Boggs, 27, was pronounced dead at the state penitentiary at 11:07 p.m., hours after he lost last-minute court appeals, including one to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, who could have commuted Boggs’s sentence to life imprisonment, did not intervene. The execution was the first during the six-month-old administration of Wilder, a former death penalty opponent who changed his position several years ago.

Defense lawyers claimed that the state’s electric chair might malfunction and that Boggs suffered from brain damage.

U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams turned down Boggs’s request for a stay of execution in the morning and a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling late in the afternoon

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay at 8:45 p.m. The vote was 7 to 2, with Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, who oppose the death penalty in all cases, dissenting.

Boggs was sentenced to death for the Jan. 25, 1984, robbery and slaying of his Portsmouth neighbor, Treeby M. Shaw, 87. She had just poured tea for Boggs when he beat her with a metal bar and stabbed her. Boggs told police he killed the widow he had known all his life because he needed money for drugs. He took diamond rings from her fingers and family silver from the house.

He was charged with the murder after police found the silver in the trunk of Boggs’s car when he was arrested for killing a man in a hit-and-run accident. Boggs was convicted of murder for that crime and was sentenced to 30 years in prison

Richard Boggs’s attorney, David Bruck, argued that Virginia’s electric chair is virtually identical to the one in Florida that had to be switched on three times before it electrocuted murderer Jesse Tafero in May. Flames and smoke appeared from under the man’s head covering.

Robert Anderson, an assistant state attorney general, said the chair had been thoroughly checked and there was “no foreseeable prospect of a malfunction.”

Bruck also argued that tests conducted last week show that Boggs suffered brain damage from fetal alcohol syndrome and was unable to control his impulses.

Anderson countered that Boggs’s appeal to Wilder for clemency noted that the inmate had above-average intelligence, had written many letters from death row and often watched public television.

Wilder was an outspoken foe of capital punishment for most of his 16 years in the state legislature. Wilder, who represented a predominantly black district in Richmond, said that historically the death penalty had been indiscriminantly applied against blacks

But by 1985, as a candidate for lieutenant governor, he announced that he had changed his view, saying that more restrictive guidelines made it an appropriate punishment in extreme cases.

During his gubernatorial campaign last year, Wilder pledged to allow executions to be carried out if he were convinced that the penalty was appropriate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1990/07/20/murderer-dies-in-virginias-electric-chair/bbaa65ee-93f7-4720-befa-a9d6caf21a2d/

Derick Peterson Executed For Howard Kauffman Murder

Derick Peterson was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Howard Kauffman

According to court documents Derick Peterson would rob a grocery store and in the process of the armed robbery would shoot and kill Howard Kauffman

Derick Peterson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Derick Peterson would be executed via the electric chair on August 22 1991

Derick Peterson Photos

Derick Peterson Case

Derick Peterson, who took part in the largest death row breakout in U.S. history, was executed Thursday night in Virginia’s electric chair for killing a grocery store manager during a $4,000 robbery in 1982.

Peterson was pronounced dead after two jolts of electricity at 11:13 p.m.

In a lengthy final statement, he blamed racism for his death penalty. Peterson is black and his victim was white.

‘The blacks of the land need to speak up,’ Peterson said.

In 1984, Peterson was one of six condemned killers who used a bomb hoax and stolen guard uniforms to escape from death row. He was recaptured the next day when agents found Peterson and another escapee having wine and cheese in a North Carolina coin laundry. Four of the six escapees have now been executed.

Thursday afternoon, as Peterson met with family members at Greensville Correctional Center, his lawyers waged a last-minute battle for clemency. They won an early stay from a federal judge, but the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond vacated the stay within hours

The U.S. Supreme Court would not intervene, and Gov. L. Douglas Wilder found no reason to offer clemency.

Among the small contingent of death penalty protesters was Nancy Gowen of Richmond, whose mother was murdered by the ringleader of the 1984 escape attempt.

‘I didn’t know where I was until then. Being Catholic, you learn your lessons well, but then your mom gets clobbered. It was tough … separating out the issues,’ Gowen said.

Gowen said she remains convinced the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime. When asked how she felt, she replied: ‘Really bumsville.’

In 1984, the death row inmates staged a fight and then overpowered the guards who responded to get their riot gear. The convicted killers then put a television set on a gurney next to a fire extinguisher and covered both with a sheet.

The inmates, their faces covered by protective shields, and using the guard radios, yelled for the doors to be open so the smoking ‘bomb’ could be taken outside. They carried the ‘bomb’ into a van that was whisked through the front gates, and the men drove off to freedom. All were recaptured within a month

Derick Peterson, 30, was condemned for the 1982 robbery and murder of Hampton, Va., grocery store manager Howard Kauffman. Peterson had received a temporary reprieve when U.S. District Judge John MacKenzie granted a stay just 12 hours before the scheduled execution.

But the appeals court agreed with Assistant Virginia Attorney General Richard Smith, who said MacKenzie’s ruling sent an ‘unmistakable’ and ‘ruinous message’ to death row lawyers: always wait until the 11th hour.

The final legal moves to block the execution focused on Peterson’s original lawyer. His appeal attorneys, Gerald Zerkin and Mark Olive, contend there was a conflict of interests because that lawyer also represented Peterson’s mother, Eloise Peterson, on drug charges.

Information about the mother-son relationship — it included assertions that Eloise Peterson beat her son and forced him into the illegal drug business — never had been presented at trial, Zerkin said.

Ineffectiveness of counsel is a standard death row basis of appeal, but the lawyer in question, Christopher Huffman, defended his work.

Huffman said introducing evidence from Peterson’s home life would have made a death penalty more likely because it would have ‘portrayed Mr. Peterson as an irredeemable criminal.’

On Monday, Eloise Peterson took partial blame for her son’s life of crime at a tearful State Capitol news conference. She said she was only 16 when he was born and implored Wilder to ‘put himself in my place as a parent’ and spare her son.

‘I saw him going astray but didn’t know what to do because I was going astray myself,’ she said while clutching a photograph of her son.

Twelve convicted killers have been executed in Virginia since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Jean Clark, operations officer at the Greensville prison, the home of Virginia’s electric chair since the ancient State Penitentiary in Richmond was closed last year, said Peterson turned down any special last meal. Peterson had said the standard Thursday night prison fare — turkey and mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables and cake — would be fine.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/08/22/Death-row-breakout-artist-executed/6357682833600/

Albert Clozza Executed For Patricia Bolton Murder

Albert Clozza was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Patricia Beth Bolton

According to court documents Albert Clozza would abduct Patricia Beth Bolton, 13, as she was walking back to her home. The teen would be dragged into the woods where she was sexually assaulted and murdered

Albert Clozza would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Albert Clozza would be executed by way of the electric chair on July 24 1991

Albert Clozza Photos

Albert Clozza Case

Albert J. Clozza, a maintenance man who raped and murdered a 13-year-old girl in Virginia Beach in 1983, was electrocuted tonight hours after saying he expected no forgiveness for his deeds.

Clozza, 31, was pronounced dead at 11:07 p.m. shortly after being administered two surges of electricity, said Jean Clarke, operations officer at the Greensville Correctional Center.

Witnesses said Clozza made no final statement in the death chamber.

He was the 12th person to die in Virginia’s electric chair since the state resumed executions in 1982 and the 150th in the nation since the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing states to resume capital punishment.

Clozza admitted abducting Patricia Beth Bolton while she was walking home from a bookmobile to the Virginia Beach trailer park where she lived and he worked

He said he raped her, forced her to commit sodomy and beat her to death.

In the hours before the execution, a prison psychologist and others who visited Clozza said he was “coping with his situation quite well,” Clarke said.

Clozza made no last-minute court appeals and did not request clemency from Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. Wilder said Tuesday he “completed a thorough and exhaustive review of the record” and found no reason to stop the execution.

Clozza said in a statement: “I cannot change what I have done in the past, no matter how much I wish that I could. Nothing I can say or do will stop the pain that I have caused.

“I do not expect people to forgive me for what I have done in my life. I . . . have paid for my ways.”

Clarke said ministers, Clozza’s attorneys and Marie Deans, of the Virginia Coalition on Jails and Prisons, a group that opposes the death penalty, visited Clozza today

About 60 people gathered outside the prison as the execution neared. The group included about equal numbers of death penalty opponents and curious local residents.

“I don’t think it’s fair to take a life for a life, but I guess you have to do what you have to do,” said Roger Mason, who lives down the road from the prison.

The Rev. George Ricketts, director of a private organization that provides chaplains for state prisons, said he had several reasons for opposing capital punishment, the most significant being “the possibility of executing innocent people.”

The governor’s office received 11 letters about the case, all asking for clemency for Clozza, said Michelle Prosser, Wilder’s deputy press secretary.

“The majority were from out of state and clearly associated with Amnesty International,” Prosser said. The organization opposes capital punishment, saying it violates human rights

Wilder received hundreds of letters and phone calls in February asking that he spare the life of double-murderer Joseph A. Giarratano because he might be innocent. The governor commuted the sentence to life in prison.

Virginia’s electric chair was last used in December, before it was moved from the State Penitentiary in Richmond to the Greensville prison in Jarratt, 55 miles south.

The chair was put into use in 1908 and had been used to execute 246 men and one woman before yesterday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/07/25/girls-killer-executed-in-virginia/e1deacdc-e935-4446-b542-1a3444a0c287/