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In this 1998 photo,
Wesley Ira Purkey, center, is escorted by police officers in Kansas City, Kan.,
after he was arrested in connection with the death of 80-year-old Mary Ruth
Bales. (AP/The Kansas City Star)
Wesley Purkey raped, kidnapped, and murdered 16-year-old Jennifer Long. Purkey then dismembered and burned her body and scattered the remains into a septic pond. He was also convicted of the murder of 80-year-old polio patient, Mary Ruth Bales.
Wesley
Ira Purkey executed by lethal injection, the second federal execution this week
Purkey's lawyers contended he had
dementia and was unfit to be executed
The U.S. carried out
its second federal execution this week by killing Wesley Ira Purkey on
Thursday morning.
Purkey, 68, died by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex
in Terre Haute, Ind., at 8:19 a.m. local time.
The
man was convicted in the 1998 kidnapping
and killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Long, whose body
was dismembered, burned and dumped in a septic pond. That same year,
Purkey also was convicted in a state court in Kansas after using a
claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who had polio.
Purkey's lawyers contended
he suffered from dementia and was unfit to be executed.
“I
deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer’s family,” Purkey
said in the moments before his execution. “I am deeply sorry. I deeply regret
the pain I caused to my daughter, who I love so very much. This sanitized
murder really does not serve no purpose whatsoever.”
The
U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for his execution to take place just hours
before, ruling in a 5-4 decision. The four liberal justices dissented
— as they had in the first execution case earlier this week.
Justice
Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “proceeding with Purkey’s execution now, despite the
grave questions and factual findings regarding his mental competency, casts a
shroud of constitutional doubt over the most irrevocable of injuries.” She was
joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan.
It
was the federal government’s second execution after a 17-year hiatus. Another
man, Daniel Lewis Lee, was put to death Tuesday after his eleventh-hour legal
bids failed.
Purkey’s
lawyers had argued his condition had deteriorated so severely that he didn’t
understand why he was being executed. They said he was repeatedly sexually
assaulted as a child and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar
disorder, and other mental health conditions.
The
issue of Purkey’s mental health arose in the run-up to his 2003 trial and when,
after the verdict, jurors had to decide whether he should be put to death in
the killing of Long in Kansas City, Missouri. Prosecutors said he
raped and stabbed Long, dismembered her with a chainsaw, burned her body and dumped
her ashes 200 miles away in a septic pond in Kansas.
Purkey
was separately convicted and sentenced to life in the beating death of
80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales, of Kansas City, Kansas.
Daniel
Lewis Lee has been executed in Indiana, marking the first federal execution in
17 years
Purkey
had a long history of childhood trauma, was sexually abused by family members
and a Catholic priest and was beaten by other family members, Liz Vartkessian,
a mitigation specialist who worked with Purkey’s legal team and visited him
dozens of times in the last five years, told the Associated Press.
But
recently, Purkey’s mental health had seriously deteriorated to the point he
didn’t have the stamina for long visits with his legal team and often forgot
key facts and dates, she said.
Correction
officers had to help him write down a schedule to remember his visits with his
lawyers, Vartkessian added.
And
he had a long history of paranoia and delusions and believed the Justice
Department was moving forward with his execution because of many complaints and
lawsuits he brought in prison, even though most had failed, Vartkessian said.
The
Supreme Court this week has also lifted a hold placed on
other executions set for Friday and next month.
Dustin
Honken, a drug kingpin from Iowa convicted of killing five people in a scheme
to silence former dealers, is scheduled for execution Friday.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.foxnews.com/us/wesley-ira-purkey-execution
Victim's father reacts after federal execution
•Jul
16, 2020
VIDEO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ASFl_3roFg
OTHER
LINKS:
RE: Sister Helen Prejean: Stop
the federal killings Helen Prejean, CSJ July 15, 2020
From: Dudley Sharp, independent
researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV upon
request
Sr. Prejean believes there is a
rush to justice . . . with a 17 year pause in federal executions?
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