DARRELL KEITH RICH A.K.A YOUNG ELK (EXECUTED IN CALIFORNIA ON MARCH 15, 2000)

                On this date, March 15, 2000, Darrell Keith Rich A.K.A Young Elk was executed by lethal injection in California. He was the eighth person put to death by that State since 1976. I will post information about him from clarkprosecutor.org and please go to my other blog to hear from the victims’ families.

Citations:
People v. Rich, 248 Cal.Rptr. 510 (Cal. 1988) (Direct Appeal).
Rich v. Calderon, 170 F.3d 1236 (9th Cir. 1999) (Habeas).
Rich v. Calderon, 187 F.3d 1064 (9th Cir. 1999) (Habeas). 

Final / Special Meal:
Declined. 

Last Words:
"Peace." 

Internet Sources:
California Department of Corrections

SUMMARY:

Darrell Keith Rich was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder in the July-August 1981 deaths of Annette Fay Edwards, Patricia Ann Moore, Linda Diane Slavik, and Annette Lynn Selix. Three of these convictions were with special circumstances, and a Yolo County jury sentenced Rich to death on January 23, 1981. 

Annette Fay Edwards, 19, of Redding was beaten with a rock after Rich attempted to have sex with her. She died of multiple head injuries. Patricia Ann Moore, 17, was driven to a remote area by Rich, where she was raped and then beaten to death with a rock. Linda Diane Slavik, 26, was driven from Chico, by Rich, to his house in Cottonwood. She was raped there and then driven to a remote area where she was shot and killed. Just before she was killed, she was shown the dead body of Patricia Ann Moore, who had been killed at the same remote location. Annette Lynn Selix, 11, was driven by Rich to his Cottonwood house where he committed acts of rape, sodomy and oral copulation. He then drove here 30 miles to Johns Creek Bridge and threw here 105 feet to the rocks below. 

On Aug. 20, 1978, three days before Darrell Rich’s arrest, he advised a friend that he had discovered a dead body. The friend informed police officers who in turn began to question Rich. He consented to a polygraph and failed. This led authorities to believe he knew more about the bodies than he was revealing. Several days later, Rich began telling acquaintances that he in fact received $7,000 for killing one of the women. When he was asked about the other body, he responded that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Authorities were informed of these revelations and this resulted in Rich’s arrest. He later confessed to the above listed crimes along with two others. He also gave police officers his gun and provided detailed information regarding the offenses. 

PRIOR RECORD

First arrested age 17 for assault with a deadly weapon, and sent to the California Youth Authority at age 19. Since age 16, Rich has had a history of progressive violence. He was a heavy drinker from the time he was in his mid-teens up to his arrest in August 1978. In addition to the four counts of first-degree murder, the Yolo County jury also also found Rich guilty of 15 other counts, including rape, sodomy and kidnapping, in December of 1980. 

EXECUTION

At 12:06 a.m., March 15, 2000, the execution by lethal injection of Darrell Keith Rich began in San Quentin State Prison’s execution chamber. Rich was pronounced dead at 12:13 a.m. Rich declined a last meal and drank tea, broth and Gatorade until his execution. He spent his last hours with his spiritual advisors and his attorneys. Darrell Keith Rich’s last word was “Peace.” 

ProDeathPenalty.Com

Darrell Rich was convicted of murdering 3 women and an 11-year-old girl in Shasta County, California. "This is a day that has been long in coming for the citizens of Shasta County," McGregor Scott, the Shasta County district attorney, said after the execution date was set. "This man wreaked havoc over the course of 1978. There is no one more deserving of the death penalty than Darrell Keith Rich." Rich's 1981 trial was moved to Yolo County because of extensive news coverage in Shasta County. Rich, 44, of Cottonwood, sexually assaulted and killed girls and young women in the Redding area between June and August 1978 and became known as the "Hilltop Rapist". He did not deny most of the attacks and offered a defense based on his mental condition. He was convicted of three 1st-degree murders, one 2nd-degree murder, sexual assaults on 4 other women and an attempted sexual assault on a 5th. One of the victims was 11-year-old Annette Selix, whose mother had previously employed Rich. The girl left her Cottonwood home one day in August 1978 to buy groceries. Her partially clad body was found the next day under a 105-foot bridge, from which she had apparently been thrown to her death. An autopsy determined that she had been alive at the time he threw her off the bridge and that she survived for a time after landing on the rocky area. 

"I'm just glad it has come to this and that it's finally going to be over," the girl's mother, Sharon Tidwell, said. Annette's stepfather David Tidwell, said, "We're wasting time -- just kill him. He better pray there's not a life after death -- if there is, he better hide." Other relatives of Rich's victims echoed such comments, and the courts over the years have taken note of the brutal nature of Rich's crimes, which included beatings, a shooting, strangulation and bludgeoning. "To even the most hardened eye, the crimes were almost unimaginably brutal -- savage attacks on defenseless young women, all sexually ravaged," 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals Judge Michael Daly Hawkins wrote. The other murder victims were Annette Edwards and Patricia Moore of Redding, both beaten to death, and Linda Slavik, who disappeared from a Chico bar and was found shot to death at a dump in Shasta County. The Moore killing was ruled to be 2nd-degree murder. 

None of Rich's relatives spoke at his clemency hearing and his lawyers did not attend. The only people who spoke on his behalf were death penalty opponents, whose comments drew hisses and a few walkouts from angry victims' relatives. "We've been unjustly sentenced to 22 years of hell," said Linda Hines, Annette Selix's aunt. "Please, please, put all of us out of our much-prolonged misery." Mike Yates, whose sister, Linda Slavik, was murdered by Rich, said the case has meant "22 years of legalized torture" for his family. A woman who survived an attack by Rich sobbed, her hand pressed over her face, as a victim's rights coordinator read her written statement to the board recounting how she had pleaded with Rich for her life, begging him to spare her for the sake of her baby daughter. In her statement, the woman described in poignant detail how the attack has haunted her life, reaching into her dreams and shadowing her relationship with her husband. "We are never alone. Darrell Rich is always there between us," she wrote.