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Killer of Arlington optometrist set to die07/23/2003Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - The long day of jury selection was over and everyone in the Tarrant County courtroom was somewhat relaxed when accused killer Cedric Ransom made his move. With a 51/2-inch piece of broken glass taped at one end and hidden in his hand, the capital murder defendant tried to stab one of his attorneys in the back. Ignoring orders from a bailiff to back off, Ransom turned his attention to a nearby prosecutor. "He was coming at me and his words were very clear: 'I'm going to kill you!...

Accused Murderer Scott Woodring Is Dead By Sheri Diorio Posted: 7/13/2003 Michigan State Police say Scott Woodring is dead. Woodring is accused in the shooting death of Michigan State Trooper Kevin Marshall. Police say Woodring was found early Sunday morning in a car at Maple Island Road and 60th Street in Dayton Township on the Newaygo County line. Police say Woodring got out of the car when police approached and pointed an assault rifle at police. That's when police shot and killed Woodring. The standoff between police and Woodring began last Sunday. That's when police tried to serve Woodring a...

In a bitter criticism of the executions carried out last week in Cuba, José Saramago, the Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese writer considered Fidel Castro's best friend among European intellectuals, broke with the regime Monday. ''This is as far as I go,'' Saramago wrote in a short but powerful essay printed in Spain's leading newspaper, El País, as the European Union, various countries and organizations around the world continued to offer public repudiations. Killing three men by firing squad at dawn Friday for trying to spirit a ferry boat is unacceptable -- especially since the would-be hijackers didn't hurt anybody, wrote Saramago,...

Man who killed three set to die07/09/2003Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - More than five years after 17-month-old Katrease Houston was gunned down at a home in Killeen, police officer Eric Bradley still can recall details that marked the horrendous scene where the girl's grandmother and an infant also were fatally shot. "The toddler in the high chair was eating crinkle-cut french fries and corn," Bradley said, talking this week about the Feb. 7, 1998, massacre where the girl; her grandmother, Gwendolyn Black, 36; and Black's 5-month-old daughter, Christina Marie, were killed. "She was just sitting there in the high...

Oklahoma executes 11th inmateMan, 39, was convicted of beating roommate to death in 198807/09/2003Associated Press McALESTER, Okla. – A man who beat an Oklahoma City resident to death with an ashtray stand and fireplace poker was executed for the crime Tuesday in Oklahoma's death chamber. Robert Don Duckett, 39, was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m., becoming the state's 11th inmate executed this year. In his final statement, Mr. Duckett asked for forgiveness. "I just want to apologize and hope my family forgives me. I love them very much, and I hope they never forget that. Let's go," he said,...

HUNTSVILLE -- On Feb. 25, I watched my government kill a killer. Texas' 298th execution was the first death I had seen, but the other reporters and prison officials who were there had each observed more than 100 state killings. With the experience of 306 executions in 20 years, Texas carries them out with machine-like precision. Regular witnesses refer to them as "clinical." The executions take place in the Walls prison unit, a crumbling red brick behemoth dating back to 1848. The unit takes up several blocks of downtown Huntsville and bears little resemblance to a modern-day prison. It looks...

Former policeman executed for slaying of Conroe boy07/03/2003Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Convicted killer Hilton Crawford, fondly known to his 12-year-old victim as "Uncle Hilty," was executed Wednesday evening for the abduction and slaying of a Conroe boy almost eight years ago. Crawford nodded and smiled to witnesses, asking for forgiveness and expressing love for his family. "I thank Jesus Christ. I had an opportunity to serve Jesus Christ, I'm very thankful for that," he said, a small wooden cross dangling from a cord around his neck. The victim's mother, Paulette Everett-Norman, was standing behind a window just a...

A man was executed Wednesday for abducting and killing the 12-year-old son of longtime friends in an apparent scheme to obtain ransom money to pay off his debts. Hilton Crawford apologized and asked for forgiveness from the boy's mother, who witnessed the execution. He was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. after an injection.

Violent clashes rocked the southern City of Behbahan following the executions of two freededom fighters. Slogans against the regime and its leaders were shouted by many despite the heavy presence of the regime forces who were beating the protesters with clubs and chains. Several protesters and members of the security forces, many of them of Iraqi origin, were injured in the clashes as residents tried to stop the public executions from taking place. The two man were among those arrested during the violent clashes that rocked the City Of Ahwaz earlier this month and were involved in the popular uprising...

Four of six British soldiers killed in a southern Iraqi town were executed after they surrendered following a fierce gun battle, British newspapers reported, as Prime Minister Tony Blair ruled out sending more troops to the country.The British military policemen mounted a last stand Tuesday at a police station in Al-Majar Al-Kabir, around 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Iraq's second city of Basra, and were killed, possibly with their own weapons, after they refused to flee, papers said.Most British newspapers, which carried the story of the deaths on their front pages, said the sequence of events was still...

Three of the six British soldiers killed in Iraq were executed after surrendering their weapons, it was claimed today. The Royal Military Police officers, a sergeant and five corporals, were shot dead after trying to quell a demonstration of Shi'ite Muslims in the town of Majar al Kabir yesterday. The account of a local man, who tried to save the life of the sergeant in charge of the patrol, backs up Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie McCourt who said today: "This attack was unprovoked. It was murder." Two of the men died when shooting broke out as the military policemen faced a...

<p>The execution of three blacks by a Cuban government firing squad in April for attempting to hijack a boat to Miami is raising questions about racism on the communist island.</p> <p>It was the first time anyone, black or white, had been executed for trying to flee Cuba.</p>

Johnson Executed For Videotaped Robbery-Slaying Inmate's Final Words: 'Tell Mama I Love Her' Posted: 6:54 p.m. CDT June 11, 2003 Updated: 7:04 p.m. CDT June 11, 2003 HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A twice-paroled burglar was executed Wednesday evening for gunning down the night manager of a suburban San Antonio convenience store almost 10 years ago in a $23 robbery. "Tell Mama I love her," Kia Levoy Johnson, 38, said when asked by a prison warden if he had a final statement. "Tell the kids I love them too. See y'all," he said, directing his comments to his brother, watching through...

Inmate facing death for robbery-slaying 06/11/2003 Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - For an agonizing 45 minutes, a surveillance videotape shows William Rains trying to climb out from behind a counter after he had been shot and robbed at the suburban San Antonio convenience store where he was the night manager. "It's like in the movies where you see the shaking hand come up and the shaking hand go down when somebody is trying to lift themselves up," Bexar County Assistant District Attorney Michael Cohen recalled this week. "You'd see the hand shake, then fall. It was real surreal. "Unfortunately, this...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Guantanamo officials are ready to provide a courtroom, a prison and an execution chamber if the order comes to try terror suspects at the base in Cuba, the mission commander said. Although no new directive has been given and no plans have been approved, a handful of experts are looking at what it will take to try, imprison and, if need be, execute detainees accused of links to Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s fallen Taliban regime or to the al-Qaida terror network. "We have a number of plans that we work for short-term and long-term...

On June 19, 1953, as the Yankees were playing the Chicago White Sox in Yankee Stadium, not too many miles "up the river", 2,000 volts of electricity was surging through the bodies of liberal left-wing traitors, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The question on this 50th anniversary of the Rosenbergs punishment is "Who did more damage to US national security - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, or Bill and Hillary Clinton? The stench of ammonia saturated the air. Ammonia and death. Before the three jolts of electricity killed him, Julius had urinated involuntarily and now the guard was mopping the floor and...

STRING THEM UP Fri Jun 6, 7:01 PM ET By William F. Buckley Jr. Ahmed Jubarah said that he did not consider himself a murderer; he was simply a man who wanted peace and freedom. That's all. He traveled extensively in his young life, including, at age 20, a voyage to Colombia, where there have been a lot of people over a lot of decades who have sought peace and freedom at gunpoint. He went then to Paterson, N.J., and on to Chicago. He later returned to the West Bank, his native land, and joined Al-Fatah. He put an old...

Convicted terrorists should be executed William F. Buckley (archive) June 7, 2003 Ahmed Jubarah said that he did not consider himself a murderer, he was simply a man who wanted peace and freedom. That's all. He traveled extensively in his young life, including, at age 20, a voyage to Colombia, where there have been a lot of people over a lot of decades who have sought peace and freedom at gunpoint. He went then to Paterson, New Jersey, and on to Chicago. He later he returned to the West Bank, his native land, and joined Al-Fatah. He put an old...

When he got started in his unusual line of work back in 1998, Muhammad Saad al-Beshi suffered from "stage fright" because so many people were watching him. But the nervousness soon left him, just like his victim's head. "The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled meters away," said al-Beshi, Saudi Arabia's top executioner, according to a story in the Saudi daily Arab News. Muhammad Saad al-Beshi (Photo courtesy of Arab News) And how does al-Beshi feel about killing people for a living? In the interview, reported also by the...

Dallas couple's killer gets stay of execution 05/30/2003 Associated Press HOUSTON – The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Thursday granted a stay of execution based on a mental retardation claim by a death row inmate who was convicted of fatally stabbing a Dallas civil rights lawyer and his wife in 1986. Kenneth Dwayne Thomas, 42, was set for lethal injection June 18 for the burglary and killing of Fred Finch and his wife, Mildred. The appeals court Thursday sent Mr. Thomas' case back to a Dallas trial court, where the inmate's mental retardation claims are to be considered. During...