Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Florida Man Convicted of Killing 3 Scheduled for Execution
NBC Miami ^ | Sunday, Jun 15, 2014

Posted on 06/15/2014 3:46:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway

John Ruthell Henry is scheduled to die Wednesday for 1985 murders.

A man who killed his estranged wife and her son two years after he had been paroled for murdering his previous spouse is scheduled to be executed this week, more than two decades after he was sentenced to death.

John Ruthell Henry, 63, is scheduled to die Wednesday for the 1985 stabbing death of his wife, Suzanne Henry, in Pasco County. Gov. Rick Scott signed Henry's death warrant for that murder.

He also was convicted in Hillsborough County of stabbing Suzanne Henry's 5-year-old son, Eugene Christian, near Plant City, hours after Suzanne's murder.

Timeline: OJ Simpson Murder, Civil Trials Henry also previously pleaded no contest to second-degree murder for fatally stabbing his common-law wife, Patricia Roddy, in 1976. He served less than eight years in prison and was released in 1983. He had been on parole for two years when he killed his wife and Eugene. Suzanne Henry's relatives told reporters she hadn't known about John Henry's previous killing when she married him after his release.

During his trial, prosecutors said Henry, an unemployed bricklayer, went to Suzanne Henry's home three days before Christmas to talk about buying a gift for the boy, who was Suzanne's son from a prior relationship. They fought over Henry living with another woman and he stabbed her 13 times in the neck and face, killing her. He took Eugene and drove around for nine hours, sometimes smoking crack cocaine, before killing the boy by stabbing him in the neck five times.

Hours later, Henry told a detective, he found himself wandering a field.

Henry tried to use an insanity defense for killing his wife.

Jury Recommends Death Penalty in Dunkin' Donuts Murder Trial Psychiatrists at the trial testified that Henry had a low IQ, suffered from chronic paranoia and smoked crack cocaine. Henry told the therapists that he stabbed Eugene so he could rejoin his dead mother. He told them he had intended to kill himself but said he was unable to go through with it.

During the trial, then-Pasco County detective Fay Wilber testified that he drove Henry to find the boy's body. When the boy's "two small feet" were finally seen in the underbrush after dawn, Henry "started crying," Wilber said, according to news reports.

"He was crying and he held on to me," the detective said.

In recent months, Henry's attorneys have questioned whether his client was mentally stable enough to comprehend his death sentence.

In an appeal the Florida Supreme Court rejected last week, Henry's attorney, Baya Harrison III, wrote that Henry's "abhorrent childhood, extensive personal and family mental health history, poor social adjustment, and lack of rational thinking and reasoning skills so impaired his adaptive functioning that he was actually performing at the level of a person with an IQ of 70."

Supreme Court Rules for Death Row Inmates With Low IQ in Florida Case In May, a panel of mental health experts said Henry doesn't suffer from mental illness or an intellectual disability and that he understands "the nature and effect of the death penalty and why it is to be imposed on him," according to court records.

Pasco County Sheriff's Maj. Ed Beckman was a young detention deputy at the agency the year the killings happened. Beckman, who is scheduled to be a witness at Henry's execution, said that he's one of the few people still working at the agency from the time of the killings.

"I had just turned 20 years old. It was around Christmas and those events kind of stick out a little bit," he said. "I want to be there for the sake of the victims, just to be there for them. And on behalf of the men and women of the sheriff's office, to make sure the sentence is carried out."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: deathpenalty; execution; florida
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-30 next last

1 posted on 06/15/2014 3:46:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

2 posted on 06/15/2014 3:47:44 PM PDT by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
So wait, there were three people scheduled for execution, and he killed them?

Thats what the headline says.

3 posted on 06/15/2014 3:48:19 PM PDT by Wyrd bið ful aræd (Pope Calvin the 1st, defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

4 posted on 06/15/2014 3:49:27 PM PDT by LukeL
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Wyrd bið ful aræd

That’s how I read it as well. Had hopes maybe he was a prison guard or something.


5 posted on 06/15/2014 3:49:40 PM PDT by FlJoePa ("Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

His lawyer will still claim racism. Or low IQ. Or sunspots. Whatever. He’ll go for another delay. I mean his victims are so last century.


6 posted on 06/15/2014 3:50:33 PM PDT by SkyDancer (If you don't read the newspapers you are uninformed. If you do read newspapers you are misinformed)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Our culture has erred in the direction of “not brutal enough”. We underestimate the animalistic response of the human animal in trying times...times which haven’t been considered, let alone experienced, in the lifetimes of most Americans.


7 posted on 06/15/2014 3:50:58 PM PDT by gorush (History repeats itself because human nature is static)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

No one knows how to write.

Man convicted of murdering three in 1985 now scheduled for execution.

SEE?

HE DIDN”T EXECUTE THREE PEOPLE THAT WERE SCHEDULED FOR EXECUTION


8 posted on 06/15/2014 3:51:09 PM PDT by panzerkamphwageneinz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: panzerkamphwageneinz

A comma between the number 3 and execution would also work. Another point is that you are taught in middle school that numbers 10 or less are spelled out, while numbers larger can be printed numerically


9 posted on 06/15/2014 3:53:16 PM PDT by LukeL
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Wyrd bið ful aræd
So wait, there were three people scheduled for execution, and he killed them?

That's what I got from it also.

10 posted on 06/15/2014 3:53:16 PM PDT by South40 (Liberalism is a Disease)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Wyrd bið ful aræd; FlJoePa; panzerkamphwageneinz; LukeL; South40

They may not be good reporters, but the ones who do this are more entertaining.


11 posted on 06/15/2014 4:00:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: LukeL

>>A comma between the number 3 and execution would also work. Another point is that you are taught in middle school that numbers 10 or less are spelled out, while numbers larger can be printed numerically
<<

The “journalists” of today were too busy learning how to put a condom on a cucumber to learn English grammar, syntax and style.


12 posted on 06/15/2014 4:08:52 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (AGW "Scientific method:" Draw your lines first, then plot your points)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

Amen to that. I can’t be bothered over this man, he’s done to much damage. Kill him before he marries again!


13 posted on 06/15/2014 4:20:07 PM PDT by jocon307
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Whether he can comprehend why he is to be executed is irrelevant in any legal sense. The only thing that matters is that he was capable of forming criminal intent.


14 posted on 06/15/2014 4:25:10 PM PDT by IronJack
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jocon307
Amen to that. I can’t be bothered over this man, he’s done to much damage. Kill him before he marries again!

Ted Bundy fathered a child while in prison during a not-so-well-monitored visit.
15 posted on 06/15/2014 4:35:25 PM PDT by Nepeta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
He killed three people who are scheduled for execution?

He deserves a medal!

16 posted on 06/15/2014 4:38:15 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." --Tacitus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: panzerkamphwageneinz

“No one knows how to write”

Kind of an overly broad statement considering that YOU just did it properly.
Hmmmmmmmm?


17 posted on 06/15/2014 4:38:17 PM PDT by Tupelo (I feel more like Philip Nolan every day)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Wyrd bið ful aræd

“So wait, there were three people scheduled for execution, and he killed them?”

That’s exactly what I thought, too. I hastened to read the article, at which time I discovered otherwise. Sigh.


18 posted on 06/15/2014 4:47:21 PM PDT by Old Grumpy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Wyrd bið ful aræd

That’s how I read it too! I was going to see if I could send him a care package!


19 posted on 06/15/2014 4:53:35 PM PDT by coon2000 (Give me Liberty or give me death!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Jeez...how much did the taxpayers of Florida pay to have this thug who killed a kid in 1985 to stay in Starke?


20 posted on 06/15/2014 5:06:53 PM PDT by ExCTCitizen (I'm ExCTCitizen and I approve this reply. If it does offend Libs, I'm NOT sorry...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-30 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson