Oct. 25 TEXAS----impending execution Murder-for-hire convict faces execution today Condemned inmate Gregory Summers remembers making funeral arrangements for his parents and an uncle, all of them fatally stabbed and then burned when their home in Abilene was set on fire. "I went to pieces," he said of the deaths 16 years ago of Gene and Helen Summers, who adopted him when he was 3 days old. "My parents were the greatest." But authorities in Abilene determined Summers arranged for their slayings to collect insurance money, offering $10,000 to another man to kill them. Prosecutors convinced a jury he was guilty of capital murder and should be put to death. "I had nothing to do with this," Summers insisted. "They know that." Summers, 48, was set to die tonight for plotting their killings. Andrew Cantu, the man who carried out the slayings, went to the Texas death chamber in Huntsville more than 7 years ago. Kent Sutton, who was an assistant district attorney in Taylor County and prosecuted Summers, tells a different story about the funeral of Summers' parents. After Summers received his mother's wedding ring from the funeral director, Summers immediately tried to trade it for a Rottweiler, Sutton said investigators learned. "He loves his mother so much to trade this precious heirloom for a dog," Sutton said. "I think that tells you something about his love for his parents." Summers' execution would be the 22nd this year in Texas, the nation's most active capital punishment state. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Summers, refusing 3 weeks ago to review his case. His attorneys, however, returned to the courts, trying to halt the punishment by challenging the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection method. "He was so cruel in what he did to them and he needs to pay," said Brenda Steele, who lost her aunt and two uncles. "From the time they adopted him, he always had what he wanted when he wanted it. He never knew what 'no' meant, until he got older. They loved Greg and they overlooked a lot of things they probably shouldn't have." Cantu, 31, was executed in 1999 for fatally stabbing Summers' parents, both 64, and Gene Summers' mentally retarded brother, Billy Mack Summers, 60, then setting their home on fire. Cantu, a paroled burglar at the time, was supposed to find his payoff in a dresser drawer at the Summers' Abilene home, but no money was there. Summers said he knew Cantu's brother, who had worked for his father. A tip to police from Cantu's brother led to the arrest of Andrew Cantu and 2 companions. A tip to a Crimestoppers telephone hotline led police to Summers. Two men who accompanied Cantu the night of the slayings testified against him as part of a plea bargain and told how Cantu slipped through a back window, stabbed Gene Summers nine times in the chest, his wife eight times and Billy Mack Summers seven times, then set the house on fire. Cantu denied involvement and blamed the killings on the companions, who also testified Cantu identified Greg Summers as the instigator. Authorities said the slayings culminated the Summers couple's frustration with bailing their son out of his financial problems and Greg Summers' attempt to get the proceeds of insurance. "His father had come to the end of his rope with Greg and was starting to cut him off financially," Sutton said. "Greg was going to inherit everything and that was one of the reasons he wanted the house burned. The instructions he gave Andrew Cantu were to have the house burned down, but he really didn't want the house." Prosecutors also showed how Summers previously collected insurance payoffs from fires at his grandmother's house and a vehicle. "Greg was pure evil," said Miles LeBlanc, Sutton's prosecutor partner. "He'd been bleeding them dry for money over the years, and when he realized he couldn't get any more out of them, he figured he could get their insurance." At his trial, Summers' 2 ex-wives testified about his violence toward them and his four children and how they feared him. >From death row, Summers described family members as "estranged." Cantu wasn't the first man approached by Summers to carry out the killings, according to testimony. And a fourth man in the car with Cantu the night of the slayings left when he learned of the activities planned for that night. Both also testified against Summers. "We were able to find enough circumstantial evidence to piece together a strong case," LeBlanc said. "Greg Summers earned his conviction." (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA----impending execution Alabama inmate's request for stay of execution denied In Montgomery, an attorney for death row inmate Larry Eugene Hutcherson filed a petition Tuesday afternoon with the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to block Hutcherson's execution, set for Thursday in the 1992 killing of an elderly Mobile woman. Earlier Tuesday, a federal appeals court denied a request to block Hutcherson's execution. The 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in Atlanta rejected pleadings by Hutcherson's attorney, Al Pennington of Mobile, that Alabama's death penalty law is flawed. The decision by a three-judge panel of the Atlanta court agreed with Alabama prosecutors who said Hutcherson waited too late a week before his scheduled execution to raise issues already settled in his failed first round of appeal. Hutcherson, 37, who pleaded guilty at a 1996 retrial, faces lethal injection at Holman Prison at 6 p.m. Thursday for the June 26, 1992, slaying of 89-year-old Irma Thelma Gray of Mobile. She was nearly decapitated in the attack, prosecutors said. "I'm disappointed," Pennington said in a phone interview. He added that he wasn't really surprised by the decision but felt the judges missed an opportunity to rule on important points of the law. Assistant Attorney General James Houts said Tuesday that Attorney General Troy King "is relieved and pleased that the 11th Circuit has acknowledged what we said all along, that this was a last-minute lawsuit to delay the imposition of his lawful sentence." Pennington, however, said he was prepared for the 11th Circuit's decision "and had already prepared all but finished completing my Supreme Court petition." He filed it electronically about 3:00 p.m. Tuesday. "The U.S. Supreme Court has my motion to stay the execution, and I am assuming at some point between now and the time of the execution they will rule up or down," Pennington said. He said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the petition and said it had been a "tough case" given the nature of the homicide. According to the court record, Hutcherson broke into the elderly woman's home, beat and sodomized her and cut her throat. He said he had been drinking heavily and taken 6 Valium pills. Houts said he was confident the Supreme Court would reach the same decision as previous courts and find that Hutcherson's petition is "a delaying tactic that has no merit whatsoever." Hutcherson's civil complaint seeking a stay mirrored some of the claims in a 2001 class-action suit against the state. That suit, contending Alabama provides inadequate legal aid to capital murder defendants, was heard by a 3-judge panel of the 11th Circuit three weeks ago and a ruling has not been issued as yet. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA----impending execution Grim memories haunt campus as execution looms The terror started late on a Sunday afternoon in August 1990, just before the fall semester began. A police officer, summoned by worried parents, discovered the first two bodies in an apartment near the University of Florida campus. Freshmen roommates Sonja Larson, 18, and Christina Powell, 17, were fatally stabbed and sliced up with a razor-sharp hunting knife. Just after midnight, before the news of the gruesome killings had a chance to take hold, Christa Hoyt, 18, a Santa Fe Community College student and sheriff's office employee, was found mutilated in her apartment, her severed head placed on a shelf. The next morning, UF students Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada, both 23, were found slaughtered in the apartment they shared nearby, plunging the laid-back college town into a full-fledged panic. Students fled, neighbors huddled together for protection, residents armed themselves. Innocence was lost. Many lives were changed forever. The manufacturer of this nightmare was a drawling police officer's son and career criminal from Shreveport, Louisiana, named Danny Harold Rolling. After a dozen years on death row, the now 52-year-old Rolling is preparing to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Florida State Prison in Starke. Criminal ambitions Thousands of UF students have come and gone since Rolling arrived on a Greyhound bus, pitched a tent in the woods near campus and set out to become, as he would say later, a "superstar" among criminals. But those students and residents who lived through the worst chapter in the city's history locked away indelible memories that are surfacing again as the execution date nears. "We didn't know the magnitude of it until we were in the middle of it. To wake up each morning to news that another young person was found dead was terrifying," recalled Larry Reimer, a minister whose United Church of Gainesville offered shelter to frightened college students. As the body count rose, Gainesville Police Chief Wayland Clifton called for help from the FBI, the Florida Highway Patrol and other agencies. By midweek, heavily armed officers were ubiquitous on the streets, and helicopters with searchlights a nightly reminder that a serial killer was still on the loose. UF President John Lombardi canceled classes for the week, and the world's media descended on Gainesville to cover the story. College town in fear "What was interesting was how quiet the student areas got," said Ronald Dupont Jr., who was attending UF and working as a night police reporter at The Gainesville Sun. "A lot of people left town, and a lot of people were holed in their homes genuinely afraid. It turned the town from a happy-go-lucky college town into almost like a wake." Steve Spurrier was preparing for the first game of what would be a storied football coaching career at his alma mater when the murders shook campus. "It was a terrible time in Gainesville," said Spurrier, now head coach at the University of South Carolina. "We actually allowed a lot of our older players to stay where their girlfriends were because of it. Maybe football helped (the healing), but it was certainly one of the worst tragedies that ever happened in Gainesville." The focus of the task force first fell on a UF student who was unfortunate enough to go off his psychotropic medication and begin acting strangely around town after the slayings. He was eventually cleared. Meanwhile, Rolling robbed a bank and stole a car before leaving Gainesville the day after the last bodies were discovered. Belongings he left at the campsite in the woods would eventually link him to the slayings. Rolling's name first came to the attention of investigators because he was suspect in the similar mutilation slayings of 3 people back in Shreveport (he later confessed, but was never prosecuted). But it would be December 1990 before they would find him sitting in the Marion County jail a half hour south of Gainesville, awaiting trial for robbing a grocery store there. DNA confirmed he was the killer. Guilty plea Rolling pleaded guilty as trial began on February 15, 1994. In the penalty phase, jurors rejected arguments that he should be spared because of an abusive father, unhappy childhood and history of drug use and mental illness. Judge Stan R. Morris sentenced him to die. Dianna Hoyt, Christa Hoyt's stepmother, said Rolling's execution has been eagerly awaited by the victims' families. Some will be inside the prison to witness it. "What he did was so horrendous, how he tortured our children," Hoyt said. "I think this man can still find enjoyment from that. I just need his mind put to sleep. I don't need him thinking about it anymore." Sadie Darnell, who was the police department's media spokeswoman at the time and developed enduring friendships with the victims' families, said Rolling's execution still matters, even if it also provides him more of the notoriety he sought. "It does not symbolize closure for any of the family members. Retribution, though, is important because it represents that our society is holding that person accountable," said Darnell, now a candidate for Alachua County sheriff. Today's UF students may know the names of the victims because they're painted on a panel on the edge of campus, a memorial that fraternities took responsibility for preserving. Besides being part of the university's history, said Christopher Bucciarelli, president of the UF Interfraternity Council, it's a reminder -- "for everyone to be careful and to be safe." (source: Associated Press) ************************* The Night Before Death Tuesday: It's almost here. The day many people in Gainesville have been waiting for. It's amazing how this story has come full circle for me. I was at every murder scene, covered searches, covered hearings, trials, and became friends with many of the victims' families. Now I will get to see, actually watch, Rolling die. I can't wait. That may not sound right to some, and it's not that I want to witness anyone die, but this is about justice. The system has taken too long in this case. He admitted it. Cutting up bodies, posing them in certain positions for effect... These were innocent victims. What will he say? How will he look? I will let you know exactly what happens tomorrow night. Driving To Gainesville Monday: 5 hours in the car gave me time to think about the days ahead. In just 3 days, I will get to see Danny Rolling die. I have not had the time to stop and really think about the responsibility this assignment comes with. I have seen dead people in car crashes and murders. But they were dead when I arrived on the scene. I'm actually going to see Rolling walk into the chamber alive, I am going to witness his last expressions, his reactions to being injected with substances that will end his life, stop his heart. Wow. It makes my heart pound thinking about it. How will I feel when I walk away? Time will tell. I can tell you Danny Rolling is getting off easy. Rolling will be injected with sodium pentothal, which will knock him out. Pancuronium bromide will paralyze Rolling's muscles. Potassium chloride will stop his heart from beating. The truth is, Danny Rolling won't feel the pain hes inflicted on the victims. He won't feel the pain their families have. I hope Danny Rolling is terrified. I hope he's feeling the way those of us who lived in Gainesville felt in August of 1990. I hope he has a little remorse, regret. I hope as he walks into the chamber Wednesday he breaks out in a cold sweat and shakes with terror. In talking on the phone with the victims families and investigators, it seems like August 1990 was yesterday. I lived in Casablanca West, a mile from all the victims. Still have the .38 special I bought from Sapp's Pawnshop for protection. Those of us who worked this story were just as terrified as the students who fled. Who would be next? I knew information about the crime scene, the way the victims were killed ... stuff that wasn't initially reported. They should wake Rolling up out of a deep sleep, slice him up the way he did Christina, Sonja, Christa. Maybe cut his nipples off. Slice him open from his chin to his pelvis. He should feel pain. Lethal injection is too easy. (source: Jeff Weinsier, Local6.com) ********************* Mom relies on faith, but patience wears thin----Her daughter was one of the first victims, and she says after 16 years that it's "high time" for Danny Rolling's execution. Sonja Larson was one of Danny Rolling's 1st victims. Her mother, Ada, who lives in Ohio, spoke about how she has endured, her desire that Rolling be put to death and her advice to the students who don't remember that horrific weekend 16 years ago. How have you sought comfort over the past 16 years? What has kept you going - your faith, being a victims' advocate, family members? I have been greatly comforted by family and church friends by them showering us with compassion and love. My faith has helped me immensely these past 16 years. When I get down, I know I can call on God and he always comforts me with wonderful memories of the 18 + years I had with my daughter. I use Sonja's Bible and find it comforting when I see all the passages she highlighted. One of the things that keeps me going is doing projects that involve Sonja. Early on, I constantly had a project going and to some extent, I still do. It might be making Christmas cards using one of Sonja's paintings, or planting a tree dedicated to her memory, or making a scrapbook of her life. I also keep things around the house that remind me of her, such as photos, objects she gave me, or her paintings. For the first couple of years, I held an open house on Sonja's Jan. 1 birthday. I have been involved in trying to change the law regarding the number of appeals a murderer can have. However, the Florida Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional after the voters approved it. Few current students in Gainesville know about the murders. If you could speak to the students at the school, what would you tell them? What would you tell them about your daughter? I would tell the students that Sonja was very excited to be attending the University of Florida. She was young, smart, a talented artist, a great friend to have and a wonderful daughter. She enjoyed sports and was a pitcher on her high school team. I would tell them that they should enjoy their college days, study hard, but most of all, stay safe. Never go out alone after dark and be sure to have safe, secure locks on their doors. Do not take chances. What are your thoughts about the execution after all these years? Are you afraid that the execution will be stayed for one reason or another? I think it is high time. It has taken too long to get to the execution. I know there is a chance it will be stayed, but I hope not. I want this all to be over. It is now up to the U.S. Supreme Court. You said that you are planning to come to Starke next week and witness the execution. What do you think you will feel after seeing your daughter's killer die? I have no idea how I will feel witnessing the execution. It is my understanding that it is as if he will go to sleep. It is not something I am looking forward to doing, but I know my husband, Jim, who died in 1996, would witness, so I will go for both Sonja and Jim. (source: St. Petersburg Times) ******************* Jury sentences man to death penalty in '97 Polk killings A jury took less than 2 hours to opt for the death penalty for a businessman convicted of the worst mass murder in Polk County history on Tuesday. Nelson Ivan Serrano, 68, was previously convicted on four counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of a former business partner and 3 bystanders at a Bartow garment conveyor factory in 1997. The jury returned after less than 2 hours of deliberations with a 9-3 majority recommending the death sentence for the Ecuadorean businessman. Frank Dosso, 35; his sister and brother-in-law, Diane Patisso, 28, and George Patisso Jr., 26; and his father's business partner, George Gonsalves, 69, were all shot to death Dec. 3, 1997, at the factory. "We have been sitting here for 12 weeks. Mr. Serrano had a decision on December 1997 to walk away," said George Patisso Sr., whose son and daughter-in-law, George and Diane Patisso, were killed in the shootings. "Now he will pay." Serrano denied the killings, saying he was in Atlanta on business at the time. Defense attorneys said there was no evidence connecting Serrano to the slayings and no proof he was even in Polk County on the night of the murders. "The evidence fails to put him in Bartow. The evidence fails to put a gun in his hand. The evidence fails to put him at the scene of the crime," defense attorney Cheney Mason told jurors at the beginning of the trial. As Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace gave his closing remarks to the jury, defense attorney Bob Norgard asked circuit Judge Susan Roberts for a mistrial. Norgard said closing remarks by the prosecution should not have intoned Serrano's moral compass. Roberts denied the mistrial but edited jury instructions to disregard Wallace's characterizations of Serrano. Prosecutors told jurors rage over being ousted drove Serrano to mastermind an elaborate plot to kill Gonsalves and leave himself with an alibi almost 500 miles away. Dosso and the Patissos were killed because they got in the way, prosecutors said. They described a scheme that involved Serrano buying plane tickets to different places to make it appear he was somewhere he was not. Wallace said that Serrano's actions were cold, calculated and premeditated and deserving of the ultimate punishment. During closing arguments, Wallace reminded the jury of the four victims, including Diane Patisso, a Polk County prosecutor. "She did not know her brother and husband were dead. She was only picking them up because they did not have a ride that afternoon," Wallace said. "She is the only person that stood between him and freedom. She saw his face." (source: Orlando Sentinel)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, ALA., FLA.
Rick Halperin Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:43:14 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
