Tyrone Gilliam was executed by the State of Maryland for the murder of Christine Doerfler
According to court documents Tyrone Gilliam and two accomplices would kidnap Christine Doerfler who was forced to make withdrawals and afterwards she was driven down a dead end street where she was fatally shot
Tyrone Gilliam would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Tyrone Gilliam would be executed by lethal injection on November 16 1998
Tyrone Gilliam Photos
Tyrone Gilliam Case
Convicted murderer Tyrone D. Gilliam was executed by chemical injection at the Maryland Penitentiary late tonight, the first of at least six condemned men across the country scheduled to be executed this week.
Gilliam, 32, who was convicted in the Dec. 2, 1988, shotgun slaying of 21-year-old Baltimore hardware store accountant Christine Doerfler in a $3 robbery and carjacking, was pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m., a few minutes after prison guards administered a lethal dose of drugs through intravenous lines.
Before the injections started, Gilliam said, “Allah, forgive them for what they do.” Then he turned toward his attorney and a Muslim spiritual adviser among the witnesses and said, “I love you,” according to media representatives who were present.
His final words, they said, were “Allah akbar,” Arabic for God is great. Outside the stone and brick penitentiary a half-mile from Baltimore’s bustling Inner Harbor, more than 200 capital punishment opponents, many holding candles, sang songs of support for Gilliam and chanted, “They say death row, we say hell no.
Earlier in the day, both the Supreme Court and Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) rebuffed eleventh-hour petitions to spare Gilliam.
His case attracted national attention when Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan issued an urgent plea for mercy Sunday to Glendening, saying that Gilliam’s conversion to Islam had “helped him to see the error of his ways.” Gilliam joined the Nation of Islam in 1994 and went by the names Tyrone X. Gilliam and Minister As-siid Ben Maryam.
Gilliam was the third inmate executed in Maryland in this decade after a hiatus of almost 33 years.
At least five other condemned men in prisons from Virginia to California are awaiting execution this week, one of the largest numbers scheduled in one week in recent years, according to anti-capital punishment groups that monitor death penalty cases. Three men, including one in Virginia, are set to be executed Tuesday
“It’s an unusual number by any measure,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. So far this year, he said, there have been 54 executions.
Among the condemned men scheduled to be executed this week is Jaturun Siripongs, 43, a Thai native who once trained as a Buddhist monk. He was scheduled to die early Tuesday in California in the 1981 slaying of two store workers. In addition to California and Virginia, executions are scheduled in Texas, Illinois and North Carolina.
In Gilliam’s case, Glendening turned down a petition for clemency, saying the facts in the case showed that “Mr. Gilliam shot and murdered Miss Doerfler in cold blood.”
In a five-paragraph statement, the governor said he had reviewed evidence in the case since Gilliam’s death warrant was issued Oct. 5. In the course of his review, he said, he had found that Gilliam confessed twice to pulling the trigger and that his confessions were corroborated by two co-defendants in the case.
Glendening also noted that Gilliam’s case has been reviewed and upheld 16 times by state and federal appellate courts.
According to trial testimony, Gilliam and brothers Kelvin LeGrant Drummond and Delano Anthony “Tony” Drummond ambushed Doerfler in a suburban parking lot after a day of heavy drinking and drug use. When they found she had only $3, according to testimony, they ordered her to drive them to an automated teller machine.
On the way, they changed their minds and forced her to drive to a secluded area in Baltimore County where, Kelvin Drummond and police testified, Gilliam shot Doerfler in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun. Drummond testified that Gilliam told him he killed Doerfler because she had seen his face.
Gilliam, convicted as the trigger man, was sentenced to death.
Kelvin Drummond, who testified under a plea agreement, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Tony Drummond drew a sentence of life without parole
Since the murder, Gilliam changed his account, at one point saying he was not the trigger man.
Last week, he told reporters he was so heavily drugged during the incident that he could not remember what happened.
Gilliam’s attorney, Jerome H. Nickerson Jr., also produced affidavits from the Drummond brothers stating that Gilliam was not the trigger man. Neither affidavit said who fired the shotgun, but Nickerson said Saturday that if he could get a court hearing, the shooter would be identified.
On Sunday, prosecutors obtained new statements from both Drummonds, in which the brothers said the affidavits they had given Nickerson were not true.
The new statements were included in prosecutors’ filings with the governor in his consideration of Gilliam’s bid for clemency.