Posted on 03/18/2004 8:19:24 PM PST by Indy Pendance
JARRATT, Va. (Reuters) - A man who confessed to luring a pizza delivery woman to an empty house on a vacation island, sexually assaulted her and then shot her dead was executed in the U.S. state of Virginia on Thursday.
Brian Lee Cherrix, 30, was executed by injection and pronounced dead at 9:10 p.m. in the death house of the Greensville Correctional Center, said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections.
Authorities said Cherrix lured Tessa Van Hart, 23, the mother of a young son and daughter, to her death in an empty house on Virginia's Chincoteague Island with a phony pizza order on the night of Jan. 27, 1994.
Van Hart was sodomized and shot twice. Her body was found in her car near the vacant home where she attempted to deliver the pizza. The killing went unsolved for three years.
In 1997, when being held in jail for unrelated crimes, Cherrix confessed to police after first trying to blame the slaying on a deceased cousin. He later disavowed his confession.
In a 2001 interview, Cherrix denied he was guilty and said he only confessed so police would stop bothering him.
Cherrix declined to make a last statement, and he refused to have the details of his last meal released to the public.
Traylor said members of Van Hart's family witnessed the execution. He would not say who they were or how many were present.
Robert Jenkins, one of Cherrix's lawyers, said Cherrix did not want to ask Virginia Gov. Mark Warner for clemency and that he had told his lawyers not to file any appeals on his behalf.
Cherrix was the first person executed in Virginia this year and the 90th since the death penalty was allowed to resume by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.
Traylor said Cherrix met with immediate family members and lawyers on Thursday.
T'would have been better if she had been carrying a nice, decent caliber, handgun, and put one right between his eyes. Same end result for the Good Guys, but her kids wouldn't be orphans, and the taxpayers of Virginia wouldn't be out the big bucks for the trial.
Wonder if this was one of those Pizza businessess that forbid the carrying of weapons by their delivery drivers?
Can't any reporter write a sentence anymore? What this sentence actually SAYS is that the man confessed, THEN assaulted the woman, and the THEN shot her.
This seems to be a common thread among liberals, much like the murderous criminals they defend, they've come to the defense of almost every murderous Dictator, and the Regimes they've led, in modern times, while ignoring the suffering of their people.
Hugo Chavez
Manual Noriega
Ho Chi Min
Aristide
The Taliban
Saddam Hussein
Udey & Qusey Hussein
That's just a few
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.