March 8 TEXAS----execution Convicted hit man put to death for role in Dallas case murder case An apologetic former auto insurance appraiser who authorities said collected $1,500 to kill a Dallas-area physician's wife more than 2 decades ago was executed Tuesday evening. Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, George Anderson Hopper turned toward four members of his victim's family, including the son who discovered his mother's body, and said he was sorry. "I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. The things I did changed so many lives. I can't take it back. It was an atrocity. I am sorry. I beg your forgiveness. I know I am not worthy of it," he said, his voice breaking with emotion. Then he turned his head toward a second window, where his parents were among those watching. He told them he loved them and thanked them "for everything." Hopper, 49, said a brief prayer, which his mother repeated with him. He gasped a couple of times as the lethal drugs took effect. 8 minutes later at 6:22 p.m., he was pronounced dead. Hopper was condemned for being the hit man in a complicated scheme initiated by a woman bitter because her soon-to-be ex-husband was dating the murder victim. Rozanne Gailiunas, 33, was killed in the October 1983 attack at her home in the Dallas suburb of Richardson. She had been raped, choked with pantyhose, shot twice in the head, had tissue jammed down her throat and was tied naked to a 4-poster bed. Her then 4-year-old son found her unconscious. She died 2 days later. It was years, however, before police could unravel the case, which became one of the most intricate and complex ever in Dallas County and took authorities to Canada, Mexico and Europe. "Our family is certainly looking forward to closing this chapter," said Peter Gailiunas, whose wife was killed. Gailiunas was there but did not witness the execution with his son, now 25. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop the punishment. In late appeals, Hopper's lawyers had argued his confession was obtained improperly because detectives continued questioning him after he asked to be returned to his jail cell to think about what he wanted to do. Attorneys also contended Hopper, known to friends as "Andy," had poor legal help in the early portions of his case. Hopper was one of about a half-dozen people convicted of charges related to the scheme authorities said was hatched by Dallas socialite Joy Aylor, who fled the country just before her own murder trial. She was arrested in France years later and eventually was returned to Texas where she was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. Hopper had posed as a flower delivery man to get into his victim's house. "It was just such a cunning murder plan," said Dan Hagood, who prosecuted both Hopper and Aylor. He described Hopper as "a fellow who looks like the boy next door, ... one of those you wouldn't have a sense of danger." Hopper had no previous prison record but had been arrested in 1976 in Houston for indecent exposure and in 1984 for theft related to a pickpocket incident at a Richardson shopping mall. When initially questioned by police about the Gailiunas slaying, he fled and eluded detectives for 6 months. Prosecutors said Aylor wanted Rozanne Gailiunas dead because the former Richardson nurse was dating and planned to marry Aylor's estranged husband. Gailiunas and her husband were separated, as were Aylor and her husband, a Dallas home builder. Joy Aylor fled to Canada with $200,000 and a new lover, a Dallas attorney, on the eve of her 1990 murder trial. After the lawyer was arrested in remote western Canada on a drug charge, Aylor disappeared to France. For 2 years she assumed a false identity as Elizabeth Sharp, living in a villa outside Nice. She was exposed after a rental car she was driving was involved in a minor traffic accident. As part of their agreement with French authorities to return her to Texas, prosecutors didn't seek the death penalty in her case. Authorities said Aylor had contacted her brother-in-law, a pest control contractor, and put up $5,000 to arrange the slaying. He contacted an auto mechanic who hired Hopper. The men all got a piece of the money. Aylor's sister, the pest control contractor's wife, helped police by recording conversations implicating Aylor in the plot. Hopper becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, and the 340th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Hopper becomes the 101st condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became Governor in 2001. Hopper becomes the 8th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 952nd overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977. 2 more executions are set for Texas over the next 2 weeks. (sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin) MARYLAND: Death sentence to be sought for killing aboard prison bus----Murderer said to strangle fellow inmate with chains The Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office will seek the death penalty in the case of a twice-convicted killer charged with strangling a fellow inmate on a prison bus as it traveled from Hagerstown to Baltimore last month. Kevin G. Johns Jr., 22, was indicted yesterday by a Baltimore County grand jury on a single count of first-degree murder in the death of Philip E. Parker Jr., 20, on Feb. 2, the state's attorney's office announced. Stephen Bailey, the deputy state's attorney, said last night that the office would seek "a sentence of death." Parker and Johns were among 35 shackled inmates and five officers on a prison bus that left a Hagerstown prison early Feb. 2, bound for the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center - known as Supermax - in Baltimore. Parker had been serving a 3 1/2 -year sentence for unarmed robbery. In letters to his family, an inmate witness reported that a 2nd inmate helped hold down Parker while another man choked him with his restraint chains. But S. Ann Brobst, an assistant state's attorney handling the case, said there was not "sufficient evidence to indicate anybody else was involved." Three are fired As a result of Parker's death, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which oversees the Division of Correction, fired three officers and disciplined 2 others. DOC officials said they had conducted a review of inmate transportation policies and procedures and had made several changes. Based on the division's own transportation policies, which The Sun obtained, Johns should have been identified as a threat and kept apart from other inmates in a segregated cage at the front of the bus. But prison officials essentially blamed the officers for not doing their jobs. In their search for answers to their son's death, Parker's parents and their attorney met with prosecutors yesterday at the county state's attorney's offices. Their attorney, Michael A. Mastracci, said that prosecutors were "very sympathetic and supportive" over the loss of their son, but he declined to comment on the substance of the meeting. The Parker homicide ended up in the hands of Baltimore County prosecutors because prison investigators determined that he was likely killed during the period that the bus drove through the county. Attorneys for Johns, who has been represented by public defenders, could not be reached for comment late yesterday. The day before Parker was killed, he and other inmates had been taken to Hagerstown to testify at a hearing for Johns, who was being sentenced for killing his 16-year-old cellmate. Parker and others testified that Johns needed psychiatric treatment. At the hearing, Johns vowed that he would kill again in prison if given the chance; he ultimately received a life sentence for killing his cellmate. In 2003, he had been sentenced to 35 years for killing his uncle. Almost immediately after Parker's death, Johns emerged as the main suspect, according to a statement from the Department of Public Safety yesterday. Broken lights One of the fired officers, Robert R. Scott, said in an interview that he saw Johns move from his seat during the bus trip to Parker. He said he reported the activity to officers at the front of the bus. They turned on interior lights, but several were broken, affording only dim lighting, Scott said, Scott's termination notice said that from his position in the rear cage of the bus, he was "at most, 6-7 feet" from where Parker was assaulted. When the bus arrived at Supermax, officers called inmates off the bus by name. Johns emerged with a bloody shirt, and the officers held him aside, according to Scott's termination notice. "When Parker failed to appear, Scott boarded the bus and went to the rear, where he found Parker, apparently unconscious and slumped between" two rows of seats, the notice states. Officers removed Parker from the bus and paramedics were called, but Parker was pronounced dead at the scene, the notice said. Ed Rothstein, a board member with the Maryland Association of Correctional and Security Employees, said that officers on the bus were not told of Johns' threats in court and violent history. If they had been told, he said, Johns could have been segregated from the other prisoners. "It's really sad that the Department of Public Safety won't take responsibility for what's happened here," Rothstein said. (source: Baltimore Sun) CONNECTICUT: Death penalty opponents optimistic about committee vote Anti-death penalty opponents are optimistic that a bill abolishing Connecticut's capital punishment law could clear a legislative committee for the first time on Wednesday. A combination of new faces in this year's General Assembly and frustration over long delays in serial killer Michael Ross' scheduled execution is raising prospects for the bill, which would commute the death sentences of those on death row to life in prison. "My spirits are certainly buoyed," said Kim Harrison, a lobbyist for the Connecticut Church of Christ since 1988. "We've never been able to get an abolition bill anywhere." But even if the Judiciary Committee passes the bill, proponents said they still don't have enough votes in the full legislature to pass an abolition bill by a super-majority. Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has said she will veto any bill that would end Connecticut's capital punishment law. To override a gubernatorial veto, legislators would need a 2/3 majority in both the House and Senate. "The opponents of the death penalty know that for this sea change to take place in Connecticut, they would have to override a gubernatorial veto," said Sen. John A. Kissel, R-Enfield, the ranking Republican senator on the Judiciary Committee. "Certainly I don't think anybody expects that to happen." The committee is scheduled to vote at 10 a.m. Despite the uphill battle in the full House and Senate, Harrison said Wednesday's vote could be an important step forward for execution opponents. "The Judiciary Committee ... I think is a bellwether in terms of what the mood is in terms of the legislature and the rest of the state," Harrison said. Kissel supports the death penalty. While he believes there is a good chance the abolition bill will pass in the committee, he said that has more to do with the new political makeup of the panel rather than a shift in attitudes among most lawmakers. He said committee was known to be moderate to conservative. This year, however, the makeup is more liberal, Kissel said. "I do believe there is a strong base of support for the current (death penalty) system in the state of Connecticut," Kissel said. "I think that if people have any frustration at all, it's that the system moves too slowly." Ross, 45, who is on death row for killing four young women and girls in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s, has decided to forgo his remaining appeals and face his death sentence. The killer came within hours on Jan. 29 of becoming the 1st person to be put to death in New England since 1960. The execution was postponed until May 11 so his mental competency could be examined. Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he believes the Ross case is persuading lawmakers and members of the public that the death penalty does not work. "There's less enthusiasm for the death penalty now than before January. I think people have gotten a big dose of why the death penalty is a bad idea," he said. "It doesn't work. It's way too complicated and when all is said and done, I think it's cruel and unusual punishment for the families of the victims to go through." (source: Associated Press) OREGON: Roseburg man may face death penalty for fatal fire Paul David Fahey Jr. may face the death penalty if he is convicted of intentionally killing his estranged wife by setting fire to her Roseburg home last year. The 36-year-old Roseburg man was arraigned Monday on charges of aggravated murder, murder and arson for allegedly killing 35-year-old Brenda M. Iverson-Fahey in a Bodie Street fire on Sept. 20, 2004. Though Iverson-Fahey survived long enough to make it to Mercy Medical Center, she died shortly afterward. Fahey was also seriously burned in the fire, requiring several weeks of intensive medical treatment in a Portland hospital. "Mr. Fahey, one of the purposes of getting together here today is to advise you of the charges against you," explained Douglas County Circuit Judge Randy Garrison. "That aggravated murder charge carries with it the maximum penalty of death, or, as determined by a jury, life without parole ... " Garrison added that Fahey may also be sentenced to life with a possibility of parole in 30 years. After each of the 6 charges against him were explained, Garrison asked Fahey if he understood, to which he answered each time in a barely audible whisper, "Yes, sir." The aggravated murder charge is based upon the state's theory that Fahey murdered his wife in the course of and in furtherance of the crime of arson, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Rick Wesenberg. Each of the other charges are based on different potential explanations for Fahey's alleged actions on the day his wife died. Aggravated murder is the only crime punishable by death in Oregon. Fahey joins Samuel Adam Moen Lawson as the only 2 Douglas County Jail inmates currently facing capital charges. Lawson, of La Pine, is accused of killing a man at Lemolo Lake two summers ago and severely injuring the man's wife. 3 men convicted of aggravated murder in Douglas County are currently on death row at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. The last Oregon execution took place in 1997. Fahey's sister, 31-year-old Lorelei K. Flora of Roseburg, didn't learn her brother could face the death penalty until she was contacted by The News-Review after Monday's arraignment. She said her family was horrified by the news of Iverson-Fahey's death last fall, and she expressed mixed feelings about the prospect of her brother facing capital charges. "I dearly loved Brenda," Flora said. "Of all the people in the world, she was the most innocent person I've ever met." Flora said she and her family had pleaded for years with Iverson-Fahey to leave her brother, whom she described as a "great person" who became "horrid" when he was under the influence of drugs. "I love my brother," Flora said. "It's just really, really sad that he chose to do drugs, 'cause he could have made a real big difference to this world." She said the whole incident has wrought terrible changes in her life and the lives of her 2 children, not to mention her mother's. Flora said her 11-year-old son was particularly close to Fahey, and has had a hard time reconciling his image of his uncle with the crimes he is accused of committing. "I don't think any of us will ever get through this," she said, despondently. "It's been really, really harsh." Iverson-Fahey's family was not immediately available for comment for this story. Fahey will soon be getting a new court-appointed attorney from Eugene because his current attorney, Butch Aller, no longer handles capital cases. His next hearing is scheduled for Monday in Courtroom 403. (source: The News-Review)
