Posted on 01/13/2006 10:15:02 AM PST by SmithL
It was 1980, and Bryon Schletewitz was planning to take over his family's general store in Fresno so his parents could retire. Josephine Rocha was looking forward to being a high school senior and had taken a part-time job at the market to pay for her new car. Douglas White worked at the shop while going to college and hoped to start a real estate business with his mother someday.
But on a warm evening that year, the three were shot to death as part of a revenge plot cooked up in a Folsom Prison cafeteria. The scheme's architect, Clarence Ray Allen, is scheduled to be executed Tuesday morning for the murders.
For the victims' families, Allen's punishment will be an epilogue to a terrible event whose effects linger to this day.
Some plan to watch as Allen is given a lethal injection in San Quentin State Prison's death chamber.
"It will close a chapter for me," said Schletewitz's sister, Patricia Pendergrass, who is the last surviving member of her family. "But the pain will never go away. It's lasted for 25 years."
Others say there wouldn't be much point in watching Allen die.
"I'd rather spend the time with my family, remembering my sister," said Robert Rocha, Josephine Rocha's younger brother.
"Let's face it -- he'll be put to sleep," Rocha said of Allen. "He's not going to feel one ounce of the pain we've endured since that day."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Ping
25 yrs to finally get justice. We have to be able to do better than that.
Say goodnight, Clarence.
How disgustingly unfair that he got to out live his victim's families. POS should have been dead 24 years and 6 months ago.
This execution happens Tuesday, right? Wow. Twice in as many months and in California! At this rate we'll have death row cleared in about 60 years.
Lethal injection is for putting pets to sleep when it's necessary.
For murderers, bring back the guillotine.
With a dull blade.
Apart from how anyone feels about capital punishment, justice was apparantly meted out with a tad more celerity
at one point in time. Maybe it was a fluke of the time, but
the gentleman who was convicted of an attempt on the life of
president-elect Franklin Roosevelt was executed in less than a month (After Chicago mayor Tony Cermak died a a couple weeks later, it then became a murder trial in midstream), think about it - caught, apprehended, arraigned, trialed sentenced and executed and probably buried. Today, it might take that long for a press conference.
I did not know any of the victims or their families but I followed this story and have wondered why this vicious murderer has been allowed to live this long.
A perfect example of when the death penaly should be used. The appeal process takes too much time; these animals should not be allowed to live for 25 years after sentencing.
Why use a knife like that, it is too quick. Let them fight of a lion or two, or maybe a polar bear. Now that sounds like great punishment to me!! (would be fun to watch, too.) I find it hard to figure out why it took 25 years to kill this P.O.S. Something is really wrong with that.
Awesome website.
hilarious website.......
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