Posted on 02/04/2009 8:17:00 PM PST by fallingwater
NASHVILLE, Tenn. While he was strapped onto a prison gurney awaiting execution, inmate Steve Henley said he hoped for peace for the family of the couple he was convicted of killing.
And Henley proclaimed, as he had since 1985, that he wasn't guilty of murdering Fred and Edna Stafford and setting their home on fire.
Henley was put to death by lethal injection early Wednesday after exhausting all legal appeals a few of hours before the execution.
"I'd like to say I hope this gives Fred and Edna's family some peace," Henley said in his last statement. "From my experience in life it won't. The death of a family member never brings anything but pain."
Henley talked with his two adult children who were watching from an execution viewing room at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution until he said he could feel the cocktail take effect.
His daughter, Leanne, blew him a kiss, and his son, Gregory, gave a thumbs-up. Henley's sister, Stephanie Worley, and son-in-law also attended.
"Stop that crying," Henley told his family as he playfully stuck out his tongue. "Y'all are a pitiful bunch."
Henley's head then rolled back onto the gurney, and he began to snore.
Stacy Rector, his spiritual adviser of 10 years, led the family's recitation of the Lord's Prayer as they clung to each other. Leanne Henley vomited into a trash can between her feet.
A nephew of the victims also witnessed the execution from a separate room.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I am praying that the Lord Jesus Christ Guides obama.
Pray for America, Our Troops and obama’s Guidance
Lighten up Alice. Guess I just don’t have the compassion for a guy who murdered 2 people and then burned their house down.
Pray for America
Obama’s Guidance means Obama’s Guidance, not God’s guidance. And since it isn’t God’s guidance you’re pushing, but Obama’s, I think you mean it exactly as you wrote it. In your time here, every time I’ve come across your posts, you were pushing the opposite of God’s guidance. So don’t play games with words now.
What does that mean? Does it mean there's something unusual about it that drew national attention?
If you've got to "cut a deal" to score the chair, then it's going to be tainted forever.
Then who do I pray for obama’s Guidance? I don’t pray to obama, I pray to the Lord Jesus Christ who requires us to pray for our leaders. You can pick nit all you want, but I know what I mean far better than you. I am praying that the Lord Jesus Christ gives obama Guidance.
Pray for America
I used to be pro-death penalty, but there have been too many cases where prosecutors convict people they know or should know are not guilty. I would never vote to convict someone based only on eyewitness testimony.
When you pray for obama's Guidance, you're praying for Obama's guidance, not God's.
When you advocate killing twelve innocent people for every guilty person, you leave no doubt whose guidance you accept, and it sure isn't God's.
Think very carefully about what you have just advocated. Think of the implications. I would like to believe you did not really mean what you wrote.
Shhh! Let them continue their fantasy that the executed guy was a monk who took care of bedridden elderly during his one hour a day recreation and couldn't have done this.
The case of Gary Ridgeway, the Green River killer, provides the best argument I know for instituting a moratorium on the death penalty. If a man can admit to killing 50+ women in cold blood, and receive a sentence of life in prison, where is the justice in executing anybody other than true mass murderers (Timothy McVeigh, bin Laden, ...)? And doesn’t this send a message to murderers? Kill enough people and you can cut a deal to avoid the death penalty by offering to help the cops clear up their unsolved cases. Pity the poor schnook who fries for only killing one or two people whose bodies are found...
I hope you’ll offer up your family and yourself first, to be part of the 12 innocents.
with that attitude, brain and heart surgeries would never be done, because on occasion someone is going to die..
I don;t want ANY innocent people killed by the state: and the answer for that is to modify the "absolute immunity" for prosecutors: the current penalty of the stigma of losing the case is not sufficient.
Cheers!
Yeah, and a man needs a Feminist like a Bicycle needs a Fish.
Pray for America, Our Troops and obama’s Guidance
You need sleep. And whatever it was that feminist took from you.
Huh? That wasn't my position.
Huh? I didn’t say that capital punishment should never be used. The death penalty ensures that no corrupt or stupid legal officials will ever get the chance to release the scumbag.
It does go both ways. The same failure that releases a criminal can also send an innocent man to his death. It’s a fact of life and a harsh one at that.
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