Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 545 | Federal Executions and the Crimes They Committed

Episode Date: January 23, 2021

What got me started looking into the executed… Subscribe to the Podcast… List of the executed and what they were found guilty of… Just a reminder of why they were on death row Subscribe to the Podcast… Subscribe www.blazetv.com/jeffy Promo code jeffy… Subscribe to the YouTube Channel… Email to [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get no frills delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for $2.50 a month. Learn more at p.c.express.ca. Friday night, January 15th, 2021, the Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for the execution of Dustin John Higgs. They vacated Higgs stay in a six to three decision. Justices Sotomayor, Breyer, and Kagan dissented. Higgs received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead Saturday the 16th of January, 2021, at 123 a.m.

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor did not attempt to conceal her horror. She began her dissent by naming each victim of what's called here Trump's death campaign. and she named them. It's being framed as the federal government has executed more than three times as many people in the last six months than it had in the previous six decades, which is true. But the total number of federal executions is 13. Doesn't sound as bad now, does it? I know. It's also being framed as in 2020.

20, the federal government executed more inmates in a year than all states that still conduct executions for the first time in history. There was and is a pandemic going on, which leaves this record with an asterisk next to it. I would like to name them as well and remind you what they were on death row for. Welcome to a special chewing the fat. Federal execution. A reminder, before I get into the list of the people who were executed, to subscribe to Chewing the Fat. It's a daily podcast that you can get on whatever platform warms the cockles of your heart.

For instance, iTunes, Iheart Radio, Stitcher, Spotify, and there's a plethora of other platforms out there that you can subscribe to chewing the fat on. This is just a special one that kind of got me ticked off after I read Justice Sotomayor's dissent. And I wanted to remind everyone what these people were on death row for. It may get dark, but it is what they were on death row for. Daniel Lewis Lee, the first person executed by the U.S. federal government since 2003. Sentenced to death May 4th, 1999 for the murders of William Frederick Mueller, Nancy Ann Mueller, and their eight-year-old daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Powell. Lee and his accomplice, Chevy Kehoe, murdered the family at their home in Arkansas on January 11, 1996.

Side note, his accomplices serving three life sentences for kidnapping, torture and murder of the same family. Both described as white supremacist. Number two was Wesley Ira Perky, convicted on November 3rd, 2003 of the rape and murder of 16-year-old Jennifer Long in Missouri. He then dismembered, burned, and dumped the girl's body in a septic pond. Prior to his conviction for Long's death, he pled guilty to using a claw hammer to bludgeon to an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio and walked with a cane.

For that, he was sentenced to life in prison. Number three, Dustin Lee Honkin. Sentenced to death October 5, 2005. Five counts of continuing criminal enterprise murder. Although it was Honkin who pulled the trigger, killing three adults and two children, Johnson, his girlfriend and partner in crime, received the death penalty for four of the victims, while Honkin was sentenced to death for only the two children. The unanimous Eighth Circuit court affirmed

Honkins' conviction and sentence in September of 2008. In July 1993, Johnson posed as a saleswoman to get into the Mason City home of Greg Nicholson, Honkins' former drug dealer who was set to testify against him. Honkin forced him to record a statement of Hongan's innocence. The informant was taken to the woods, along with his girlfriend, Lori Duncan, and her two daughters, Candy age 10 and Amber age 6, where they were shot and buried.

A few months later, the fifth victim, Terry DeGess, was murdered. The victim was also a dealer for Honkin and had previously dated Johnson. The victim was beaten with a bat and shot. Side note, Johnson's death sentence was vacated in 2012. She was sentenced to life without parole in 2014. Number four, Lesmond Charles Mitchell. Sentenced to death in 2003 after being convicted of carjacking resulting in death, murder, robbery, and kidnapping. Mitchell and an accomplice were convicted of killing 9-year-old Tiffany Lee and her grandmother,

63-year-old Alice Slim, in 2001. Slim had offered Mitchell and another teenager a lift in her pickup truck as they hitchhiked on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona. Slim was stabbed 33 times. The child's throat was slashed twice, and her head was bashed with 20 pounds stones. Both bodies were then mutilated. Side note, Johnny Orsinger, the accomplice who was a juvenile and ineligible for the death penalty, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. Number five, Keith Dwayne Nelson.

In October 1999, Nelson told an acquaintance, that he wanted to kidnap, rape, torture, and kill a girl that he had seen in Kansas City, Kansas. Thereafter, Nelson parked his truck outside of Butler's home, kidnapped her while she was rollerblading. Sometime later, Nelson raped Pamela, strangled her to death with a wire, then buried her body behind a church in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2001, Nelson pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and unlawful interstate transportation of a child for the purpose of sexion. abuse resulting in death. The district court, consistent with the federal jury's recommendation, later sentenced him to death.

The conviction and sentence were both affirmed on appeal. Number six, William Emmett LeCroix Jr. LaCroix was convicted of the October 2001 robbery, rape, and murder of 30-year-old Joanne Lee Tisler in Gilmer County, Georgia. A jury sentenced, LaCroix. McCroy to death in 2004. Former U.S. soldier who had an obsession with witchcraft led him to slay a Georgia nurse in a bid to lift a spell he believed she put on him. LeCroye also said he believes she might have been his old babysitter he called Tinkerbell, who he claimed sexually molested him as a child.

LeCrooy struck Joanne Lee Tisler at her home with a shotgun bound and raped her. He then slashed her throat and repeatedly stabbed her in the back. After killing Tisler, he realized she couldn't possibly have been the one he believed molested him. Number seven, Christopher Andre Vialva. Sentenced to death after the 2000 trial in Waco's U.S. District Court. Viola was convicted in the slaying and robbery of an Iowa couple when he was 19. He and others, including his co-defendant and fellow death row inmate, Brandon Bernard. More on him later. Carjacked Todd and Stacey Bagley on their way home from church,

according to the court records. The couple was kept in the trunk while the young man tried to pull money from the victim's bank accounts and pawn a wedding ring. Eventually, Viva shot both the victims in the head while they were in the trunk, and Bernard set the car on fire. Side note, the 40-year-old was the first black man killed in the 2020 federal executions, which are taking place during a pandemic. The crime was deemed a federal crime, not a state one, because the killing occurred on a secluded part of Fort Hood U.S. Army Post in Killeen, Texas.

Now, in a video released from Vialvo, he pleaded for a stop to his execution based on what he deemed an unfair appeals process in federal death penalty cases, racial disparities on death row, and his young age at the time of his crime. He said, I'm not making this. this plea as an innocent man, but I am charged and a redeemed man. He was wearing thick, framed glasses, knitted yarmaca, and a prayer shawl over his prison clothes.

He went on to say, I committed a great wrong when I was a lost kid and took two precious lives from this world. I'm not the stupid kid I was the day I made the most desperate and tragic decision of my life. Just a reminder that these are the people that were executed by the federal government and what they did to receive the death penalty. Number eight, Orlando Cordia Hall. In 1995, a federal grand jury found Hall guilty of among other offenses, kidnapping, resulting in death, and unanimously recommended a death sentence which the court imposed.

His convictions and sentence were affirmed on appeal, and his request. for collateral relief were rejected by every court that considered them. He was convicted of kidnapping and raping a 16-year-old Texas girl before dousing her with gasoline and burying her alive. Side note, crossing the Texas-Aransas line made this case of federal crime. One of Hall's accomplices, Bruce Webster, also was sentenced to death, but the sentence was vacated because he is intellectually. disabled. Three other men, including Hall's brother, received lesser sentences in exchange for their

cooperation at the trial. The men drove to a motel in Pine Bluff. Renée was repeatedly sexually assaulted during the drive and at the motel over the next two days. Then Hall and two other men drove Renee to Bird Lake Natural Area in Pine Bluff. They led her to a grave site. They had dug a day earlier placed a sheet over her head, then hit her in the head with a shovel. When she ran another man and Hall took turns hitting her with a shovel before she was gagged and dragged into the grave, where she was doused in gasoline before dirt was shoveled over her. The coroner determined that she was still alive when she was buried and died of asphyxiation

in the grave, where she was found eight days later. Number nine, Brandon Anthony Mika Bernard. You remember him. He was with Christopher Andre Vialva. He was convicted for the 1999 robbery, kidnapping, and murder of Todd and Stacey Bagley. On their way home from church, according to court records, the couple was kept in the trunk. Well, they tried to pull money from the victim's bank accounts and pawn a wedding ring. Eventually, Vialva, as we mentioned, shot.

both of the victims in the head while they were in the trunk, Bernard set the car on fire. Number 10. Alfred Borgia. In 2004, he was convicted of murdering his two-year-old daughter while making a delivery to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas. After his 2004 conviction, a judge rejected claims stemming from his alleged intellectual disability, noting he didn't received that diagnosis until after his death sentence. Now, this is one of the people that Kim Kardashian-West had appealed to the president to commute his sentence to life, citing, among other things, remorse Bernard had expressed over the years. He was a Louisiana truck driver who severely abused his two-year-old daughter for weeks

before her death. In 2002, then he killed her by slamming her head repeatedly against the the truck's window and dashboard. His crime stood out for their brutality. According to court filings, he gained temporary custody of the child, referred to in court papers only as JG. After a 2002 paternity suit from a Texas woman, he was living in Louisiana with his wife and their two children.

Over the next month, Bourgeois repeatedly whipped the girl with an electrical cord, burned her feet with a cigarette lighter, hit her in the head with a plastic baseball bat, then refused to seek medical treatment for her. He sexually abused her. Her toilet training enraged bourgeois, and he sometimes forced her to sleep on the training toilet.

It was during a trucking run to Corpus Christi, Texas, that he killed the toddler, angered that a toilet training pot tipped over in his truck cabin. He grabbed her inside the truck by her shoulders and slammed her head on the windows and dashboard four times. She lost consciousness. his wife pleaded for him to get help and he told her to tell first responders she was hurt falling from the truck. She died the next day in the hospital of brain injuries.

Number 11, Lisa Marie Montgomery. Yes, there's a female on this list as well. Her victim, 23-year-old Bobby Joe Stinnett of Skidmore, Missouri, after befriending the pregnant woman online. line over a shared love of dogs. After driving to Stennett's house, Montgomery overpowered the pregnant woman, strangled her with a piece of rope, and cut the baby out of her womb. Police found Montgomery cradling a newborn girl she claimed to have given birth to the day before.

After her story fell apart, she confessed to the killing. Baby was safely recovered and returned to her family. She was found guilty of the crime in 2007. and the next day she was sentenced to death. Number 12. Corey Johnson. Sentenced to death in 1993, crack cocaine dealer from Virginia on death row

for taking at least 10 lives within 45 days in 1992. Side note, his attorneys have stated that Johnson suffers from intellectual disability, which prohibits him from being executed. under federal and constitutional law. Another side note, lawyers of the two detainees say lung damage from the coronavirus

increases the likelihood that they will experience excruciating pain following a fatal injection of peanut barbletal. Johnson's lawyers also argue that he has an intellectual disability and is therefore unfit to die, both under federal law and under the U.S. Supreme Court decisions. That didn't work, obviously. Number 13.

The case that started this whole story update, Dustin John Higgs, the United States executed Dustin early Saturday for his role in the 1996 kidnapping and murders of three women. Higgs 48 is the 13th federal inmate to be executed during President Trump's time in office. Sentenced to death in 2000 for his role in the 1996 murders of the three women. in Maryland. He was convicted for ordering the murder of the three women. He invited them to his apartment in Maryland, where one of the women rebuffed in advance by Higgs. In response, he offered them a ride home, but instead drove the women to a secluded area near a national wildlife refuge. He handed a gun to his friend and ordered him to shoot, saying, better make sure they're dead.

Okay. Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which is what got me started. this road that the Supreme Court has ignored compelling evidence that prisoners would die torturously painful deaths in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Higgs himself was infected with COVID-19 at the time of his death. The infection had damaged his lungs, and medical experts testified that he might experience the sensation of waterboarding as he died on the gurney. The court has ignored evidence that prisoners are intellectually disabled or especially vulnerable to extreme agony during lethal injection. Many, if not all of the recent executions may violate both federal law and the Eighth Amendment. I want to remind you, the Eighth Amendment most often mentioned in the context of the death penalty,

prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. But it also mentions excessive fines and bail. The excessive fines clause services, among other places and cases, of civil and criminal forfeiture. When, you know, property is serious during the drug raid or other raids. Yeah. So, side notes, seven of the 17 people executed in 2020 were either black, Latino, or Native American, while 13 of the 17 executions were slayings of white people.

In addition to the 22 states that no longer allow the death penalty, there are 12, that do allow the death penalty, but they have not executed anyone in the last 10 years. I know every one of these people executed have a backstory that is consuming in and of itself. As I was putting this together, I got caught up in all of them. I know the argument is the death penalty itself.

And I know that we are unveiling legislation as we speak, in Congress that would seek to end federal capital punishment. A lot of people feel that state sanctioned murder, that's what they call it, is not justice. I don't know. When they started this backup and they were talking to former Attorney General William Barr in July of 2019, when he talked of the Justice Department resuming federal executions

that was ending almost a two-decade hiatus. Attorney Barr said that they were carrying out the will of judges and juries and providing justice for the staggeringly brutal murders. And that

is tough to disagree with. And I just wanted to remind you of what these people did that got them to death row and ultimately be executed. And no, I didn't go into what they had for their last meal. I know if you listen to chewing the fat every day, you know that there are executions by the state and the, you know, and there were 13 with the federal executions. And I like to find out what they had for their last meal.

And we kind of, you know, try to put a light spin on the actual execution. But there is no real light spin. As long as we have the death penalty and people commit crimes that reach the, the level of horror and violence that makes us, as everyday people say, you should no longer be on the planet. I am not against it. I am not against it. Anyway, thanks for listening.

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