SOS
05-14-2005, 12:07 AM
New England Execution (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/14/wdeath14.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/14/ixworld.html)
This is a good thing.
New England has its first execution for nearly 50 years
By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 14/05/2005)
A serial killer was put to death in Connecticut yesterday in the first execution in New England, America's liberal heartland, for nearly half a century.
Michael Ross, who ***** and strangled eight women in the 1980s, was injected with lethal chemicals early in the morning after he fought off attempts by his family and death penalty opponents to save his life.
In his final hours he had with him a Bible and a book of Bible quotations, and had a coffee and some sweets.
He declined to make a final statement before he was executed in the presence of prison officials, journalists and relatives of some of his victims, a prison spokesman said.
His execution at the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers was the first in the six north-eastern New England states since 1960, when a convicted murderer, Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky, went to the electric chair. Only two of the six states, Connecticut and New Hampshire, have the death penalty. New Hampshire has not executed anyone since 1939 and does not have anyone on death row.
Ross, 45, had been on death row for 18 years after his conviction for the murders of four young women and girls in Connecticut in the early 1980s. He later confessed to the murders of four more women in Connecticut and neighbouring New York state.
His family sought a last-minute injunction to stop the execution, arguing diminished responsibility.
But they were turned down by the courts after Ross said last autumn that he was abandoning all appeals because his victims' families had suffered enough.
Several hundred opponents of the death penalty held a vigil outside the prison. Josh Rubenstein, the regional director for Amnesty International, said it was a "sad and unnecessary event".
Edwin Shelley, the father of one of his victims, killed in 1984, said: "We have waited 21 years for justice."
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 there have been 964 executions in America, mainly in southern states.
This is a good thing.
New England has its first execution for nearly 50 years
By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 14/05/2005)
A serial killer was put to death in Connecticut yesterday in the first execution in New England, America's liberal heartland, for nearly half a century.
Michael Ross, who ***** and strangled eight women in the 1980s, was injected with lethal chemicals early in the morning after he fought off attempts by his family and death penalty opponents to save his life.
In his final hours he had with him a Bible and a book of Bible quotations, and had a coffee and some sweets.
He declined to make a final statement before he was executed in the presence of prison officials, journalists and relatives of some of his victims, a prison spokesman said.
His execution at the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers was the first in the six north-eastern New England states since 1960, when a convicted murderer, Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky, went to the electric chair. Only two of the six states, Connecticut and New Hampshire, have the death penalty. New Hampshire has not executed anyone since 1939 and does not have anyone on death row.
Ross, 45, had been on death row for 18 years after his conviction for the murders of four young women and girls in Connecticut in the early 1980s. He later confessed to the murders of four more women in Connecticut and neighbouring New York state.
His family sought a last-minute injunction to stop the execution, arguing diminished responsibility.
But they were turned down by the courts after Ross said last autumn that he was abandoning all appeals because his victims' families had suffered enough.
Several hundred opponents of the death penalty held a vigil outside the prison. Josh Rubenstein, the regional director for Amnesty International, said it was a "sad and unnecessary event".
Edwin Shelley, the father of one of his victims, killed in 1984, said: "We have waited 21 years for justice."
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 there have been 964 executions in America, mainly in southern states.