“The
time has come; it is time for Robert Gleason to die!”
“Fry
him! Fry him!”
Yesterday, January 16, 2013, a violent lifer by the name of Robert Gleason Jr. was executed
by the electric chair in the Greensville Correctional Center, Virginia. I will
post several news sources about him before giving my thoughts.
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Robert
C. Gleason Jr. talks to investigators in a videotaped interrogation hours after
he strangled Aaron Alexander Cooper at Red Onion State Prison on July 28, 2010.
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Click on this link to
see the murder video. Warning Images are disturbing:
Video reveals details surrounding inmate's death in the Red Onion rec yard
Michael Owens | Posted: Sunday, November 13, 2011 6:00 am
For more than an hour, there were no prison
guards in sight.
The Red Onion State Prison surveillance
camera reveals a recreation yard void of anyone but five inmates in five cages
as Robert C. Gleason strangles Aaron Alexander Cooper using a braided bed sheet
threaded through the chain-link wall between them.
Each time Gleason returns to Cooper’s slumped
body, slightly hidden by the shadows of the prison wall behind them, the three
other inmates in the yard busy themselves with pull-ups from the woven,
steel-rod ceilings of their cages – in an apparent attempt to turn their backs
on the action.
Each return means another tug on the noose
around Cooper’s neck, and no one wants to be a part of another inmate’s
vendetta.
The death marked the second prison
strangulation by Gleason’s hands in little more than a year; the first was at
Wallens Ridge in nearby Big Stone Gap, Va. At Red Onion, Cooper was the first
of two inmates killed inside during the past 18 months, the most recent one on
Sept. 6.
Absent from the grainy, black-and-white Red
Onion surveillance video are the corrections officers tasked with patrolling
the state’s only supermax-security prison.
They are seen escorting Cooper, wearing leg
irons and handcuffs, into one of the cages at 12:29 p.m. Then they leave,
returning only after Gleason and the other inmates have sat down cross-legged
on the concrete and started a conversation.
Investigator’s notes show that guards carried
out a formal count of all inmates at 1:28 p.m., and an informal count of those
in the rec yard at 1:29 p.m. Even at that time, evidenced by the surveillance
video, there were no guards in the recreation yard.
Fifteen minutes later, however, the guards
discovered Cooper’s lifeless body.
Boston Bobby
Gleason, 41, is a Massachusetts native, an
award-winning tattoo artist and former hit man now on Death Row at Sussex I
State Prison in Waverly, near Virginia’s southeast corner.
Fellow inmates often call him Boston Bobby
because of his stereotypical r-dropping accent. Sometimes he signs off
hand-scrawled letters as “The Mick.”
An aging moonshiner once testified in court
that Gleason was the man called upon when someone needed to be left behind in
the woods over a debt. Gleason once described how he broke a corpse’s legs just
to stuff the stiffening body in the trunk of a car. Another victim was said to
have been killed over a $5 debt after calling Gleason a sucker for forgiving
the debt.
Gleason is to be executed for Cooper’s death
at the prison in Pound, as well as for the May 8, 2009, strangulation of Harvey
G. Watson, 63, at Wallens Ridge. A circuit court judge will set the date once
the Virginia Supreme Court has reviewed the case.
At Wallens Ridge, guards found Watson’s
hogtied-and-beaten body 15 hours after he was strangled by his cellmate,
Gleason. At least one inmate standing count – requiring the inmate to either
stand or sit up for guards – missed Watson’s corpse, tucked away under his bunk
blanket.
Gleason asked for the death penalty soon
after charges were filed in that case. Fearing he wouldn’t get it, Gleason, in
May 2010, threatened to kill again.
During his sentencing hearing in early
September, Gleason, acting as his own lawyer, asked then-Red Onion Warden Tracy
S. Ray why no one took the threat seriously.
“It’s not a matter of ignoring you or
thinking you were bluffing because, really, we didn’t even know you,” Ray
testified. “The systems were in place that had managed … people who had killed
other inmates and/or staff.”
The warden said Gleason possessed a mastery
level of manipulation that no one in the Virginia’s Department of Corrections
had ever confronted.
A glimpse of those skills was first witnessed
during the Watson murder, when hours passed without guards noticing that
something was amiss.
Gleason, at his sentencing, said: “I
manipulated staff at Wallens Ridge to falsify standing count.” Gleason told the
guards that Watson didn’t feel good; and the guards didn’t investigate.
With Cooper, the setup was more subtle.
Weeks before the rec-yard attack, the two
inmates concocted a scheme in which Gleason would strangle Cooper only until he
passed out. That way, according to the plan, Cooper’s mom could sue the prison
for placing her only son within reach of a man as dangerous as Gleason.
So, on a hot summer day in 2010, Cooper sat
down on the rec-yard concrete with his back against the woven, steel-rod wall
of his cage. Gleason stood behind him, on the other side of the chain-link
wall, with that braided strip of torn bed sheet in his hands.
“That had never been seen,” Ray testified
about Gleason’s ability to convince someone to slip a noose around his neck.
“It took everyone a while to get their mind wrapped around that act.”
Later, prison officials learned that Gleason had
smuggled the braided noose into the rec yard – despite a strip search – by
wrapping it in an extra shirt he carried in his hands.
Guard booth
In the background of the video, a handful of
guards can be seen hovering around Cooper’s body at 1:46 p.m. More than an hour
has passed since Cooper sat down on the concrete and Gleason first tugged on
the noose.
Another group of guards appear in the
foreground of the video, staring above and just to the side of the wall-mounted
surveillance camera. That’s the location of the window to the guard booth,
which fronts a series of cells inside the building. The window is at the
booth’s rear.
The Department of Corrections refused to
discuss its policy and procedure for manning the booth or watching surveillance
televisions.
But former Red Onion inmate John “Mac”
Gaskins was willing to share his recollections of prison procedure. Gaskins
finished serving a 10-year sentence for armed robbery in August. He spent four
of those years at Red Onion. During an interview last week, Gaskins said he
vividly remembers his time in the rec yard.
Gaskins describes the window as the size of a
42-inch flat-screen TV, with bars and a sliding glass window.
“There’s always someone in the room [guard
booth],” he said. Even when the booth guard goes on break, Gaskins said,
someone is supposed to step in as a temporary replacement. At least that was
always the pattern the inmates noticed.
Otherwise, the guards in the rec yard can’t
unlock the doors to get inside the prison, Gaskins said.
Yet testimony during Gleason’s sentencing
suggests the booth was empty when Cooper died.
Marvin Rodgers was among the three inmates
who witnessed the murder. He spoke to a guard in the window moments before
Gleason pulled out the noose. Rodgers, who’d been tipped off about a possible
attack, said he had hoped to stave off the incident.
“I kept [the guard] at the window as long as
I could but she went on break,” he said. The inmates kept quiet after she
dropped out of view, Rodgers said.
It’s possible the guard remained in the
booth, but away from the window and was focused on the cells instead, Gaskins
said.
Still, Gaskins said, the guard should have
been able to monitor all rec-yard events through the television monitor wired to
the surveillance camera.
“I don’t see how this could have happened
with someone looking at the camera,” he said. “This raises more questions.”
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This
evidence photo from Red Onion State Prison shows the noose used to strangle
Aaron Alexander Cooper by an inmate in a neighboring recreation cage.
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Duck
“Cooper shouldn’t have put [the noose] around
his neck, but Cooper shouldn’t have been around me, either,” Gleason said at
the end of his four-day sentencing hearing in early September.
Inmates who testified at the hearing
described Cooper as a young man who was trying to make an impression so he
could be accepted and respected in the hostile environment.
Red Onion inmates called him Duck.
On July 28, 2011, exactly a year after he
died, his mother’s attorney filed an intent-to-sue notice with the state
Treasury Department’s Division of Risk Management. A lawsuit has not been
filed.
Cooper was born in Maine, loved military
airplanes, and was serving a 34-year sentence for a string of crimes that
included carjacking and robbery. He landed in Virginia’s prison system in 2008
and was shipped to Red Onion after starting a fire in another prison.
Gleason wanted him dead.
Someone was going to die, Gleason had already
promised that much. But who?
He’d zeroed in on two other inmates, one a
black man said to commonly use racial slurs against white people. Gleason said
he didn’t like hearing the derogatory “cracker” reference.
The plan was to slip into their minds the
same scheme for a minor assault followed by a lawsuit.
Then Cooper ticked off Gleason.
In a letter later sent to Cooper’s mother,
Gleason explained the source of his anger:
“We talk about something [and] no one was
suppose to know but not even 24 [hours] passed [and he] told someone.
“I knew he couldn’t keep his mouth shut so I
ask him over [and] over again if he told, he finally confessed he did but
turned around again [and he] lied about how much he told.
“I told him not to lie and I’ll let it go. He
kept the story.”
What did the two men talk about? A review of
investigators’ taped interviews with Gleason and court testimony suggests they
discussed the lawsuit scheme. Gleason said it was after he learned that Cooper
mentioned the conversation to another inmate that the search for a target was
over.
Also, Gleason said, someone on the outside
wanted Cooper dead. Gleason was happy to oblige, he said, because that favor
now owed provided the opportunity to make good on threats outside the prison
walls.
To add a dimension of realism to the
strangulation ruse, Gleason suggested that Cooper use a cover story so he could
pass a lie-detector test after he regained consciousness and the interrogations
began.
Cooper was to tell investigators that he
truly thought Gleason was making a religious necklace for him, and needed it
sized around his neck. Gleason also told Cooper to hold his breath until he
passed out. That way, he could pass a polygraph if asked whether he faked it or
was actually choked until he lost consciousness.
Hours after the murder, in a videotaped
interview with prison investigators, Gleason revealed his true intentions.
Investigator: “Did Cooper know he was going
to die today?”
Gleason: “If he did I don’t think he would
have put it around his neck [Gleason smiles]. No, he did not know he was going
to die today.
“I told him I was going to make a necklace
for him, a religious necklace … I said hey, put this around your neck, I got to
mark this off. ‘Don’t kill me,’ [Cooper said]. I was ha, ha, ha [expletive].”
Investigator: “Did you do this today to prove
a point?”
Gleason: “Oh, yeah, I definitely did this to
prove a [expletive] point.”
Investigator: “And that point was?”
Gleason: “I still can get to people.”
Guards
Cooper might not have been the only person to
fall under Gleason’s manipulative spell that day.
For the attack to work, both attacker and
victim needed to be in adjoining cages. Court testimony revealed that by
picking their own cages, without objection or concern from the guards, the
inmates allowed the stage to be set for a murder.
Rodgers said he often used a rec cage near
Gleason to share Snickers candy bars. So, he didn’t think twice about picking a
spot next to Gleason again that day – until he stepped up to the empty cage
beside his rec-yard buddy.
“When I first got out there, [Gleason] said
don’t get in this cage, don’t get in this cage,” Rodgers testified in court –
under questioning from Gleason.
Rodgers turned right and instead walked two
doors down, he said in court. He didn’t say whether the guard mentioned
anything about the sudden decision.
The Department of Corrections, responding to
Herald Courier inquiries, wrote in an e-mail: “There was no policy that says an
offender may choose a rec cage but each facility has a policy that makes clear
that cell and bed assignments are the sole purview of the facility
administration. Offender requests must be considered based on professional
judgment of the offender’s motives and intents.”
The Department of Corrections also refused to
state whether the guard should have been suspicious about Rodger’s sudden
decision to switch cages.
“The conduct of Corrections Officers under
these circumstances is a personnel matter and DOC cannot comment on personnel
matters,” read an email sent by department spokesman Larry Traylor.
By the time Cooper and his two
corrections-officer escorts walk into the camera’s view, only the cage beside
Gleason remains unoccupied.
At 12:29 p.m., Cooper steps inside that cage and
turns his back to the guards, who remove his shackles through two openings, one
waist-high and one at his feet, to the left of the cage door. The guards stroll
out of the picture. Cooper heads to the back corner of his cell, toward
Gleason.
At 12:50 p.m., the noose slides into place
around Cooper’s neck.
Former Red Onion inmate Gaskins recalled that
guards conduct head counts every 30 minutes to account for inmates. The
investigation report shows that a formal inmate count was completed at 1:28
p.m.
But that’s usually to look at the cells
inside the prison building, Gaskins said, not the rec yard. To account for
inmates in the yard, Gaskins said, a guard usually pokes a head through a door
or the guard booth window every so often.
“The perception by inmates, and corrections
officials alike, is that something like that is not going to happen,” Gaskins
said. “There’s a little bit of complacency by everyone.”
The investigation report notes that a guard
did peek into the rec yard about 1 minute after the formal count was completed
and wrote that the inmates were either sitting or standing in the yard.
Still, 1 hour and 15 minutes pass before a
guard again walks under the camera’s steady gaze. It is 1:43 p.m.
Guards entered Cooper’s cage three minutes
later.
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This
image from a Red Onion State Prison surveillance camera video shows the body of
Aaron Alexander Cooper slumped on the concrete, and his attacker at the left,
still walking around his recreation cage.
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Murder
“The reason I knew something was going on was
because of the look on [another inmate’s] face,” Rodgers testified at the
sentencing hearing. “I said ‘You don’t want to look at that because it’s going
to stay in your head.’”
Rodgers turned around in time to see Cooper
try to lean forward, only for Gleason to pull back on the makeshift rope.
“I seen Cooper try to get away from it,”
Rodgers said to Gleason in court. “He couldn’t get away from it. You had him to
the fence.”
In the surveillance video, the faint images
of Gleason and Cooper can be made out in the back of their cages. After several
minutes, one man remains standing while the other sits down. There is movement,
and then everyone seems to be still.
Eventually, Gleason walks to the front of the
cage while the outline that is Cooper can be seen in the background, slumped on
the ground. It is 12:56 p.m. – six minutes after the noose was first slid into
place.
Rodgers said Gleason heaved on the rope,
walked away when he thought Cooper had stopped breathing, and returned to pull
some more every time he thought he saw signs of life.
A few times, Gleason placed a foot on the
fence, gripped the rope with both hands and leaned back. He eventually tied the
loose end of the rope to the fence so Cooper wouldn’t fall forward.
While on the witness stand, Rodgers spoke
directly to Gleason and described the slow death in graphic detail:
“I seen you brace up on the fence … until he
went unconscious. When he went unconscious, right, you held him a little
longer, for like maybe three minutes, so we did another set of pull-ups.
“You tied the line on the fence, right, and
left him hanging. He was raised up off the ground. His tail wasn’t on the
concrete. He was raised up by his neck, his head was to the fence …
“You went back over there and you braced it
and you put your foot up on the fence and you pulled him back again …
“When you let him go the second time you took
his head and said ‘Who’s the dummy now, Duck? Who’s the dummy now?’”
Statement of Governor Bob McDonnell on the Scheduled Execution of Robert Charles Gleason, Jr.
RICHMOND- Governor Bob McDonnell issued the following
statement today on the scheduled execution of Robert Charles Gleason, Jr.
Gleason is scheduled to be executed on January 16th.
"In
2008 Robert Charles Gleason, Jr. was convicted of the murder of Michael Kent
Jamerson in Amherst, Virginia. He was sentenced to life without parole. While
in prison he committed the brutal murders of both Harvey Watson, his cellmate
at Wallens Ridge State Prison, and Aaron Cooper, a fellow inmate at Red Onion
State Prison. Gleason strangled both men to death.
Gleason
has expressed no remorse for these horrific murders. He has not sought to
appeal his convictions and has not filed a petition for clemency. He has
consistently rejected any offers of legal assistance. Gleason has said that he
wants the January 16th execution to 'go as is.' He has been found competent by
the appropriate courts to make all of these decisions.
Despite
the fact that he has not filed a petition for clemency, I have still reviewed
the procedural history and the facts surrounding the convictions. I have found
no compelling reason to intercede.
Accordingly,
I decline to intervene."
http://www.governor.virginia.gov/news/viewRelease.cfm?id=1600
Inmate who asked for death set to be executed
Jan
16, 2013 | Sapa-AP |
It's not because he wants to die, but rather because he knows he will kill again if he's not executed.
When
Robert Gleason Jr. walks into Virginia's death chamber tonight night and is
strapped into the rarely used electric chair, it will mark the end of a twisted
quest to speed his own death.
Gleason
says it's not because he wants to die, but rather because he knows he will kill
again if he's not executed. He was already serving life in prison when he
killed his cellmate then vowed to continue killing unless he was put to death.
When the system wasn't moving fast enough, he strangled another inmate and
warned that the body count would rise if they didn't heed his warnings. Gleason
waived his appeals, and he remains in a legal battle with his former attorneys
as they file last-minute appeals to try to save his life against his wishes.
"Why
prolong it? The end result's gonna be the same," Gleason said in one of
numerous interviews from death row he's given to The Associated Press over
three years. "The death part don't bother me. This has been a long time
coming. It's called karma."
Gleason
is scheduled to die at 9 p.m. Wednesday (0200 GMT Thursday) at Greensville
Correctional Center. Condemned Virginia inmates can choose between lethal
injection and electrocution, and Gleason is the first inmate to choose
electrocution since 2010.
The
unusual choice follows a series of other shocking moves.
Deputies
had to use a stun gun on him during a violent outburst in court in 2008 before
he pleaded guilty to a shooting death that sent him to prison for life. Despite
there being little evidence against him, Gleason admitted to shooting Mike
Jamerson, whose son was cooperating in a federal investigation into a
methamphetamine ring that Gleason was involved in.
A
year later he got so frustrated when prison officials wouldn't move his new,
mentally disturbed cellmate, 63-year-old Harvey Watson Jr., that Gleason
hogtied, beat and strangled the older man. Gleason remained in the cell with
Watson's lifeless body for more than 15 hours before officers discovered the
crime.
"Someone
needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is put me on death row," he told
AP at the time, repeating his threats in court on numerous occasions.
While
awaiting sentencing at a highly secure prison in the mountains that is reserved
for the state's worst inmates, Gleason strangled 26-year-old Aaron Cooper
through the wire fencing that separated their individual cages on the
recreation yard.
Gleason
claims he's killed others - perhaps dozens more - but he has refused to provide
details. He claims he's different from the other men on Virginia's death row
for one important reason: he only kills criminals.
Watson
was serving life for killing one man and injuring two others. Cooper was a
carjacker with gang ties.
"I
ain't saying I'm a better person for killing criminals, but I've never killed
innocent people," Gleason said. "I killed people that's in the same
lifestyle as me, and they know, hey, these things can happen."
Gleason
says he only requested death in order to keep a promise to a loved one that he
wouldn't kill again. He said doing so will allow him to teach his children,
including two young sons, what can happen if they follow in his footsteps.
"I
wasn't there as a father and I'm hoping that I can do one last good
thing," he said. "Hopefully, this is a good thing."
Cooper's
mother, Kim Strickland, put aside her religious beliefs in opposition to the
death penalty when Gleason sent her Bible verses that preached an eye for an
eye before his sentencing. She testified that he deserved to die for killing
her son. She is suing the prison system over the death.
"May
God have mercy on his soul," Strickland told AP. "I've been praying
and will continue to pray that his family can heal from this ordeal."
Gleason,
42, was born in Masschusetts and still signs his letters "Bobby from
Boston." After going to art school in North Carolina, Gleason became an
award-winning tattoo artist in shops up and down the East Coast. He settled
down for a while outside of Richmond, owned a tattoo shop and embraced
religion. He later said he was feigning interest in religion to benefit his
tattoo business.
In
court papers, attorneys detail his "profoundly disturbed and traumatic
life" marked by abuse as a child and depression and other mental health
problems as an adult. Gleason starting drinking alcohol as a teen and later
abused cocaine, meth and steroids, among other drugs. His long criminal record
dates back to armed robberies as a teen. He looked up to an older brother who
died in a Massachusetts prison during a botched escape attempt.
Attorneys
who continue trying to intervene on his behalf claim Gleason is severely
disturbed. They argue his competency has deteriorated over the year he's been
in isolation on death row, and that he suffers from extreme paranoia,
delusional thinking, severe anxiety and other mental afflictions that leave him
with "a nearly overwhelming urge to end his own life."
"...his
mental illness is causing him to be suicidal, and he is enlisting the
government's help to end his life," attorney Jon Sheldon wrote in court
documents asking a federal appeals court to require a new competency
evaluation. Two other evaluations deemed Gleason capable of making his own
decisions.
While
those closest to Gleason acknowledge he's had a troubled life, they also
describe a man who dressed up as a big, purple dinosaur for his young son's
birthday and comforted him when he was scared of the costume, who organized a
motorcycle run to raise money for a child with cancer and who is fiercely
protective and supportive of those he loved.
"It's
a shame," one friend told attorneys of Gleason's death sentence, according
to court papers, "because there's a lot of goodness in him."
But
there's no mistaking Gleason's dark side.
Prison
and jail officials have intercepted letters and calls in which he either
discussed killing or directly threatened judges, attorneys, jurors and mental
health experts tied to his criminal cases. He told investigators that killing
was "like tying a shoe" or "going to the fridge to get a
beer."
Those
on both sides of the death penalty debate have seized on Gleason's case to
prove their point.
Death
penalty supporters say that keeping Gleason alive puts others at risk.
Opponents of capital punishment argue that the prospect of being executed gave
him incentive to kill Watson and Cooper.
Gleason
agrees with death penalty opponents on at least one point: that it's likely
individuals feel immense pain during a lethal injection. That's partly why he
chose electrocution.
The
other reason: He just can't imagine going out lying down.
"I
can't do that," he said. "I'd rather be sitting up."
Convicted murderer set to die tonight after demanding first electric chair execution in over two years
PUBLISHED:|
UPDATED:
When
Robert Gleason Jr. walks into Virginia's death chamber Wednesday night and is
strapped into the rarely used electric chair, it will mark the end of a twisted
quest to speed his own death.
Gleason
says it's not because he wants to die, but rather because he knows he will kill
again if he's not executed. He was already serving life in prison when he
killed his cellmate then vowed to continue killing unless he was put to death.
When
the system wasn't moving fast enough, he strangled another inmate and warned that
the body count would rise if they didn't heed his warnings. Gleason waived his
appeals, and he remains in a legal battle with his former attorneys as they
file last-minute appeals to try to save his life against his wishes.
 |
|
Convicted killer Robert Gleason Jr., is
scheduled to die in the electric chair Wednesday after he vowed to keep killing
unless he was put to death
|
'Why
prolong it? The end result's gonna be the same,' Gleason said from death row in
his thick Boston accent in one of numerous interviews he's given to The
Associated Press over three years. 'The death part don't bother me. This has
been a long time coming. It's called karma.'
Gleason
is scheduled to die at 9 p.m. Wednesday at Greensville Correctional Center in
Jarratt. Condemned Virginia inmates can choose between lethal injection and
electrocution, and Gleason is the first inmate to choose electrocution since
2010.
The
unusual choice follows a series of other shocking moves.
'Someone
needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is put me on death row,' he told AP
at the time, repeating his threats in court on numerous occasions.
 |
|
This is the electric chair at the Greensville
Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia where Robert Gleason Jr. will be
executed.
|
While
awaiting sentencing at a highly secure prison in the mountains that is reserved
for the state's worst inmates, Gleason strangled 26-year-old Aaron Cooper
through the wire fencing that separated their individual cages on the
recreation yard.
Gleason
claims he's killed others – perhaps dozens more – but he has refused to provide
details. He claims he's different from the other men on Virginia's death row
for one important reason: he only kills criminals.
Watson
was serving life for killing one man and injuring two others. Cooper was a
carjacker with gang ties.
'I
ain't saying I'm a better person for killing criminals, but I've never killed
innocent people,' Gleason said. 'I killed people that's in the same lifestyle
as me, and they know, hey, these things can happen.'
Gleason
says he only requested death in order to keep a promise to a loved one that he
wouldn't kill again. He said doing so will allow him to teach his children,
including two young sons, what can happen if they follow in his footsteps.
'I
wasn't there as a father and I'm hoping that I can do one last good thing,' he
said. 'Hopefully, this is a good thing.'
Cooper's
mother, Kim Strickland, put aside her religious beliefs in opposition to the
death penalty when Gleason sent her Bible verses that preached an eye for an
eye before his sentencing. She testified that he deserved to die for killing
her son. She is suing the prison system over the death.
'May
God have mercy on his soul,' Strickland told AP. 'I've been praying and will
continue to pray that his family can heal from this ordeal.'
'Worse than hanging': A history of the electric chair
The electric chair was the brainchild of an 1881 New York state committee charged with finding a more humane method of execution to replace hanging. The first inmate to be put to death in one was William Kemmler in 1890 in New York's Auburn Prison. It took two attempts running current through Kemmler to finally kill him, and witnesses described the horrific spectacle as 'far worse than hanging.' After some refining, the chair became the most popular method of execution from the early 1900s until the 1980s when it was overtaken by lethal injection. The last use of the chair was in March 2010, when Virginia inmate and convicted murderer and rapist Paul Warner Powell chose it over lethal injection.
Gleason,
42, was born in Lowell, Mass., a proud Yankee who still signs his letters
'Bobby from Boston.' After going to art school in North Carolina, Gleason
became an award-winning tattoo artist in shops up and down the East Coast. He
settled down for a while outside of Richmond, owned a tattoo shop and embraced
religion. He later said he was feigning interest in religion to benefit his
tattoo business.
In
court papers, attorneys detail his 'profoundly disturbed and traumatic life'
marked by abuse as a child and depression and other mental health problems as
an adult. Gleason starting drinking alcohol as a teen and later abused cocaine,
meth and steroids, among other drugs. His long criminal record dates back to
armed robberies as a teen. He looked up to an older brother who died in a
Massachusetts prison during a botched escape attempt.
Attorneys
who continue trying to intervene on his behalf claim Gleason is severely
disturbed. They argue his competency has deteriorated over the year he's been
in isolation on death row, and that he suffers from extreme paranoia,
delusional thinking, severe anxiety and other mental afflictions that leave him
with 'a nearly overwhelming urge to end his own life.'
 |
|
Condemned Virginia inmates can choose between
lethal injection and electrocution, and Gleason is the first inmate to choose
electrocution since 2010.
|
 |
|
This is the Greensville Correctional Center
in Jarratt, Virginia where Robert Gleason Jr. is scheduled to be executed at 9
p.m.
|
'...His
mental illness is causing him to be suicidal, and he is enlisting the
government's help to end his life,' attorney Jon Sheldon wrote in court
documents asking a federal appeals court to require a new competency evaluation.
Two other evaluations deemed Gleason capable of making his own decisions.
 |
|
While awaiting sentencing at a highly secure prison,
Gleason strangled 26-year-old Aaron Cooper (pictured) through the wire fencing
that separated their individual cages on the recreation yard.
|
While
those closest to Gleason acknowledge he's had a troubled life, they also
describe a man who dressed up as a big, purple dinosaur for his young son's
birthday and comforted him when he was scared of the costume, who organized a
motorcycle run to raise money for a child with cancer and who is fiercely
protective and supportive of those he loved.
'It's
a shame,' one friend told attorneys of Gleason's death sentence, according to
court papers, 'because there's a lot of goodness in him.'
But
there's no mistaking Gleason's dark side.
Prison
and jail officials have intercepted letters and calls in which he either discussed
killing or directly threatened judges, attorneys, jurors and mental health
experts tied to his criminal cases. He told investigators that killing was
'like tying a shoe' or 'going to the fridge to get a beer.'
Those
on both sides of the death penalty debate have seized on Gleason's case to
prove their point.
Death
penalty supporters say that keeping Gleason alive puts others at risk.
Opponents of capital punishment argue that the prospect of being executed gave
him incentive to kill Watson and Cooper.
Gleason
agrees with death penalty opponents on at least one point: that it's likely
individuals feel immense pain during a lethal injection. That's partly why he
chose electrocution.
The
other reason: He just can't imagine going out lying down.
'I
can't do that,' he said. 'I'd rather be sitting up.'
Deputies
had to use a stun gun on him during a violent outburst in court in 2008 before
he pleaded guilty to a shooting death that sent him to prison for life. Despite
there being little evidence against him, Gleason admitted to shooting Mike
Jamerson, whose son was cooperating in a federal investigation into a
methamphetamine ring that Gleason was involved in.
A
year later he got so frustrated when prison officials wouldn't move his new,
mentally disturbed cellmate, 63-year-old Harvey Watson Jr., that Gleason
hogtied, beat and strangled. Gleason remained in the cell with Watson's
lifeless body for more than 15 hours before officers discovered the crime.
Published:
January 16, 2013
Updated:
January 16, 2013 - 10:16 PM
Amherst
County murderer executed by electric chair
By
DENA POTTER, Associated Press
JARRATT,
Va. (AP) - A man who strangled his prison cellmate and made good on a vow to
continue killing if he wasn't executed was put to death Wednesday in Virginia's
electric chair.
Robert Gleason Jr., 42, was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center. He became the first inmate executed in the United States this year and the first to choose death by electrocution since 2010. In Virginia and nine other states, death row inmates are allowed to choose between electrocution and lethal injection.
Before
being lowered into the chair, Gleason winked into the witness booth. Then he
sat calmly while six members of the execution team strapped him in.
"Can they hear me out there?" Gleason asked. He had some brief words before ending with an Irish expletive and concluding: "God bless."
Then, after a metal helmet was placed on his head and a clamp on his right calf, his face was covered with a leather strap with a triangle cut out for the nose. He made a thumbs-up with his right hand for several seconds. Then, his body tensed as he was given two 90-second cycles of electric current before being pronounced dead.
Gleason was serving life in prison for the 2007 fatal shooting of a man when he became frustrated with prison officials because they wouldn't move out his new, mentally disturbed cellmate. Gleason hogtied, beat and strangled 63-year-old Harvey Watson Jr. in May 2009 and remained with the inmate's body for more than 15 hours before the crime was discovered.
"Someone needs to stop it," he told The Associated Press after Watson's death. "The only way to stop me is put me on death row."
While awaiting sentencing at a highly secure prison for the state's most dangerous inmates, Gleason strangled 26-year-old Aaron Cooper through wire fencing that separated their individual cages in a recreation yard in July 2010. As officers tried to resuscitate Cooper - video surveillance shows had been choked on and off for nearly an hour - Gleason told them "you're going to have to pump a lot harder than that."
Gleason subsequently told AP in phone interviews that he deserved to die for what he did.
"The death part don't bother me. This has been a long time coming," he said in one of the many interviews from death row. "It's called karma."
Gleason said he only requested death in order to keep a promise to a loved one that he wouldn't kill again. He said doing so would allow him to teach his children, including two young sons, what could happen if they followed in his footsteps.
"I wasn't there as a father and I'm hoping that I can do one last good thing," he said previously. "Hopefully, this is a good thing."
Gleason had fought last-minute attempts by former attorneys to block the scheduled execution. The lawyers had argued that he was not competent to waive his appeals and that more than a year spent in solitary confinement on death row had exacerbated his condition. Two mental health evaluations done before Gleason was sentenced in 2011 said he was depressed and impulsive but competent to make decisions in his case.
Late Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay.
Use of the electric chair remains rare in Virginia. Since inmates were given the option in 1995, only six of the 85 inmates executed since then have chosen electrocution over lethal injection.
Cooper's mother, Kim Strickland, witnessed the execution. She has sued the prison system over her son's death and said she hopes Gleason's family can have closure.
"May God have mercy on his soul," Strickland told AP before the execution. "I've been praying and will continue to pray that his family can heal from this ordeal."
Waton's sister, Barbara McLeod, said she had "mixed feelings" about the execution but "didn't want him to be able to kill more people."
"I deeply regret that the Virginia prison system set up my brother to be eliminated without due process as punishment for his mental illness," McLeod said in an email. She, nor anyone else from Watson's family, witnessed the execution.
Gleason did not visit with family before his execution. Inmate's families are not allowed to witness executions in Virginia.
Some protested outside the prison on Wednesday, saying Gleason's threats to continue killing should not be a reason to justify execution.
Despite Gleason's crimes and his insistence on being executed, "the state should not kill its own citizens under any circumstances," said Virginians For Alternatives to the Death Penalty Executive Director Stephen Northup.
Convicted Murderer Who Pleaded for Death Electrocuted in Virginia
Jan.
16, 2013
A
Virginia inmate who begged and even killed for the death penalty was executed
by electric chair Wednesday night.
Robert
Gleason Jr., 42, was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. authorities said. He was
executed at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va.
Gleason
was already serving a life sentence for murder when he killed two other
prisoners in a quest for the death penalty. He threatened to continue killing
until he was sentenced to death.
Despite
Gleason's determination to be executed, his former lawyers battled to keep him
alive and sought a stay of his execution.
"This
is going to look to most people like a case that is appropriate for the death
penalty," Gleason's former attorney Jon Sheldon told ABCNews.com
Wednesday. "But what's odd about the case is it flips the death penalty
precisely on its head in that the motive for the prison killing was only so he
could get the death penalty."
Sheldon
said killing Gleason would send a bad message to other inmates who could
potentially use killing to get what they want.
Gleason
was convicted of murdering Michael Kent Jamerson in Amherst, Va., in 2008. He
was sentenced to life without parole. In prison, he strangled Harvey Watson,
his cellmate, and Aaron Cooper, a fellow inmate.
The
inmate has been insisting on his execution.
"Someone
needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is to put me on death row,"
Gleason told The Associated Press after he killed a fellow inmate in 2009.
Gleason,
who said he only killed criminals, told the AP that requesting the death
penalty was a way of honoring a promise to a loved one that he would not kill
again. He also wanted his two young sons to learn from his mistakes.
"I
wasn't there as a father, and I'm hoping that I can do one last thing," he
said. "Hopefully, this is a good thing."
Gleason
chose the electric chair over lethal injection, making him the first in
Virginia to do so in almost three years.
Gleason
waived death penalty appeals and battled his former court-appointed lawyers who
have filed a number of appeals to stay the execution, claiming that he was not
mentally sound to make the decision.
"There
is substantial current evidence to suggest that Mr. Gleason, who is not
thinking or behaving rationally, and that he is unable to assist counsel,"
the attorneys wrote in a Jan. 9 filing. Gleason was in solitary confinement for
the past year.
They
said that Gleason exhibited "serious paranoia, racing thoughts, anxiety,
disordered thinking, pressured speech, and perseveration." The lawyers
also wrote that Gleason's mental health has not been evaluated in over a year,
which he spent in solitary confinement.
Sheldon
filed several last minute appeals to stay the execution. Both state and federal
courts have rejected the motions for stay the execution. A Supreme Court motion
has not yet been answered.
Virginia
Gov. Bob McDonnell said last week he would not intervene in the execution.
"Gleason
has expressed no remorse for these horrific murders," McDonnell said in a
statement. "He has not sought to appeal his convictions and has not filed
a petition for clemency. He has consistently rejected any offers of legal
assistance. Gleason has said that he wants the Jan. 16 execution to 'go as is.'
He has been found competent by the appropriate courts to make all of these
decisions."
McDonnell
said that even though Gleason did not file a petition for clemency, he reviewed
the case and "found no compelling reason to intercede."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Virginia executes convicted murderer who wanted the death penalty
Matthew A. WardReuters
10:03 PM CST, January 16, 2013
PORTSMOUTH,
Virginia (Reuters) - A man who admitted to strangling two fellow prison inmates
and threatened to continue killing until he received the death penalty was
executed in Virginia on Wednesday, the first time the state has used the
electric chair in nearly three years.
Robert Charles Gleason Jr., 42, had said he wanted to be put to death despite attempts by his former court-appointed attorneys to halt the execution and have him undergo a mental competency evaluation.
The attorneys had argued the time he spent in solitary confinement on death row left him unable to make rational decisions, a claim authorities rejected.
Gleason was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. (0208 GMT on Thursday), said Larry Traylor, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections. In his last statement, Gleason uttered the Irish Gaelic phrase "Pog mo thoin," or "Kiss my ass," Traylor said.
Gleason was the first inmate in the United States to be executed this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that tracks capital punishment cases.
Virginia is one of nine U.S. states where inmates can choose to be executed either by electrocution or lethal injection, the more commonly used method to carry out executions in the United States.
Gleason was serving life in prison without parole for a 2007 murder when he admitted to using strips from bed sheets to bind and strangle Harvey Watson, a 63-year-old inmate at Virginia's Wallens Ridge State Prison in May 2009.
According to court documents, Gleason told authorities he timed the murder to coincide with the second anniversary of the previous homicide he carried out.
He admitted to tying Watson's hands without a struggle after telling him he had come up with a way for the two to escape. Court records show he taunted Watson before he strangled him by pressing a urine-soaked sponge onto his face and a sock into his mouth.
Gleason attacked another inmate in July 2010 at the maximum-security Red Onion State Prison while he waited to be sentenced for killing Watson, according to court records.
Gleason said he asked fellow inmate Aaron A. Cooper, 26, to try on a "religious necklace," which Gleason threaded through a wire fence separating the two while they were in solitary recreation pens.
Gleason testified that he choked Cooper through the fence "till he turned purple," waited for his skin color to return to normal, then choked him to death.
Cooper's mother has sued the Virginia prison system, accusing prison authorities of giving Gleason the opportunity to murder her son after Gleason told guards he planned to kill again.
During court proceedings, Gleason indicated he intended to keep killing unless he was given the death penalty, according to the state Attorney General's Office. Gleason told a federal judge earlier this month he did not want a lawyer and called for his execution to proceed.
His former lawyers said Gleason suffered from mental illness and had made several suicide attempts. Their final effort to halt the execution to allow for an evaluation of his mental competency was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.
It was the first time since March 2010 that someone was executed by electrocution in Virginia.
Last year, 43 people were executed in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
(Editing by Kevin Gray and Eric Beech)
Robert Charles Gleason Jr., 42, had said he wanted to be put to death despite attempts by his former court-appointed attorneys to halt the execution and have him undergo a mental competency evaluation.
The attorneys had argued the time he spent in solitary confinement on death row left him unable to make rational decisions, a claim authorities rejected.
Gleason was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. (0208 GMT on Thursday), said Larry Traylor, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections. In his last statement, Gleason uttered the Irish Gaelic phrase "Pog mo thoin," or "Kiss my ass," Traylor said.
Gleason was the first inmate in the United States to be executed this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that tracks capital punishment cases.
Virginia is one of nine U.S. states where inmates can choose to be executed either by electrocution or lethal injection, the more commonly used method to carry out executions in the United States.
Gleason was serving life in prison without parole for a 2007 murder when he admitted to using strips from bed sheets to bind and strangle Harvey Watson, a 63-year-old inmate at Virginia's Wallens Ridge State Prison in May 2009.
According to court documents, Gleason told authorities he timed the murder to coincide with the second anniversary of the previous homicide he carried out.
He admitted to tying Watson's hands without a struggle after telling him he had come up with a way for the two to escape. Court records show he taunted Watson before he strangled him by pressing a urine-soaked sponge onto his face and a sock into his mouth.
Gleason attacked another inmate in July 2010 at the maximum-security Red Onion State Prison while he waited to be sentenced for killing Watson, according to court records.
Gleason said he asked fellow inmate Aaron A. Cooper, 26, to try on a "religious necklace," which Gleason threaded through a wire fence separating the two while they were in solitary recreation pens.
Gleason testified that he choked Cooper through the fence "till he turned purple," waited for his skin color to return to normal, then choked him to death.
Cooper's mother has sued the Virginia prison system, accusing prison authorities of giving Gleason the opportunity to murder her son after Gleason told guards he planned to kill again.
During court proceedings, Gleason indicated he intended to keep killing unless he was given the death penalty, according to the state Attorney General's Office. Gleason told a federal judge earlier this month he did not want a lawyer and called for his execution to proceed.
His former lawyers said Gleason suffered from mental illness and had made several suicide attempts. Their final effort to halt the execution to allow for an evaluation of his mental competency was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.
It was the first time since March 2010 that someone was executed by electrocution in Virginia.
Last year, 43 people were executed in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
(Editing by Kevin Gray and Eric Beech)
Copyright
© 2013, Reuters
Va. executes convicted killer who sought death penalty
By Justin Jouvenal,
A
convicted murderer who killed two fellow inmates while serving a life sentence
and vowed to keep on killing unless he was put to death was executed Wednesday
night in Virginia.
Robert Gleason Jr., 42, originally of Lowell, Mass., was
pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, the
Associated Press reported.
He
was the first death row inmate since 2010 in Virginia to choose death by the
electric chair instead of lethal injection. There were no complications. He
also was the first inmate to be executed in more than a year. He had one
visitor Wednesday: a spiritual adviser.
Earlier
Wednesday, the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit denied
a request by Gleason’s former attorneys to determine whether he was competent
to waive his right to federal appeals.
Gov.
Robert F. McDonnell (R) announced last week that he would not intervene in the
execution. Gleason’s attorneys also appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which
declined to block the execution.
“This
is a bizarre case where the death penalty is actually the sole motivator for
the killing,” said John Sheldon, one of the attorneys.
In
court documents, the attorneys wrote there was “significant evidence” of mental
illness in Gleason’s history, including prolonged bouts of depression and
multiple suicide attempts.
Wise
County prosecutors declined to comment on the case before the execution, but
they wrote in court filings that the trial court had found that Gleason
voluntarily and intelligently waived his appeals and had actively sought the
death penalty.
Gleason
pleaded guilty to strangling his cellmate, Harvey Watson, with a bedsheet at
the Wallens Ridge State Prison in 2009, saying under oath that he timed it to
coincide with the anniversary of the killing for which he was sent to prison in
the first place, according to court documents.
Gleason
later told the court that he “already had a few [other] inmates lined up, just
in case I didn’t get the death penalty, that I was gonna take out.”
In
2010, he strangled another inmate through a wire fence in a recreation pen at
the Red Onion State Prison, a “supermax” facility, according to court records.
Prosecutors said he mocked the prison staff as they tried to revive Aaron
Cooper.
Gleason
also pleaded guilty to that slaying and was sentenced to death in both
killings. Gleason was given a life sentence for the slaying of Mike Jamerson in
Virginia’s Amherst County in 2007. Prosecutors said he carried out that killing
to cover up his involvement in a drug gang.
Virginia
Department of Corrections officials said Wednesday that Gleason requested a final
meal but asked that officials not tell the media what it was. As of late
afternoon, officials said, he had received no visitors. Members of the victims’
families attended the execution.
Gleason
was the 110th person put to death in Virginia since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976 and the first since Jerry Jackson was executed in August 2011.
Virginians
for Alternatives to the Death Penalty planned to hold a vigil outside the
prison for Gleason and his victims.
“Gleason’s
case demonstrates the folly of capital punishment,” said Stephen Northup, the
executive director of the group. “If we didn’t have a death penalty, he
wouldn’t have killed these men.’’
MY
THOUGHTS:
Together
with other violent criminals, Gleason has now be demolished for good. Why
should he be allowed to live? He has murdered someone outside prison, given a
life sentence and killed another inmate and he succeeded in murdering another
inmate that was captured on video, can any abolitionist use the innocence
argument against his case? They should watch that video again and again.
If
we want to play gladiators, Gleason should be put in a cell with other prison killers to fight and hopefully they will kill one another. Since the
abolitionist want to keep killers alive, they should watch them kill one
another.
I
totally disagree with what those abolitionists who protested Gleason’s
execution said and I will rebut them here:
"the state should not kill its
own citizens under any circumstances."
Rebuttal: Please see my
response to Werner Herzog.
“Gleason’s case demonstrates the
folly of capital punishment,” said Stephen Northup, the executive director of the
group. “If we didn’t have a death penalty, he wouldn’t
have killed these men.’’
Rebuttal: Please look at
countries or States without the death penalty; they also have prison homicides
too. Take a look at Christopher Scarver, Australian prison homicides (see here
too) and see prison riots in Mexico and Brazil.
"Our Department of Corrections
has the ability to keep someone who is truly dangerous like Mr. Gleason in
solitary confinement with no access to another human being," Northrup said. "...We have the ability to keep everyone else safe from truly dangerous people without killing them."
Two Points to rebut: First,
the ACLU and other Criminal Rights Groups will say it is cruel and unusual for solitary confinement, see how
they supported Stanley Tookie Williams. Do they think walls will stop evil,
even unbreakable glass walls? Google; Operation Black Widow Pelican Bay Prison.
"Federal prosecutors say" solitary confined prisoners
"orchestrated hundreds of murders from inside maximum-security prisons.”
“The Corrections Department says there’s little it can do to stop the killings,
ordered by inmates who have nothing to lose and nothing but time.” Find out
what the public is up against. Then decide if you want you and your family to
live with such threats to their public safety.
Robert
Gleason Jr. was not deterred by the death penalty at all, but I still feel that
he deserved to die for justice and protection of the State. He did reminded me
of Gary Gilmore who wanted a suicide assist. If he wants to die, let it be! He
will not be around to hurt anyone anymore. As the late Polish President,
“Countries that give up the death penalty award an unimaginable advantage to the criminal over his victim, the advantage of life over death.”
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