Terre Hat, Ind. – U.S. The government on Tuesday hanged a former soldier who said he had murdered a Georgian nurse who believed he had cast a spell on her.
William Emmet Lacroy, 50, is a U.S. citizen similar to Terry Houtte of Indiana. He was pronounced dead at 9:06 p.m. after receiving a fatal injection at the prison, where five others were hanged in 2020 after a 17-year period without federal enforcement.
Prosecutors told President Donald Trump in a request to commute Lacroy’s sentence to life in prison that Lacroy’s brother, Georgia State trooper Chad Lacroy, was killed during a regular traffic stop in 2010 and the death of his second son would devastate his family.
The execution began about three hours after LaCroix’s lawyers eventually failed, making a last-minute bid to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to stay.
A curtain in the glass windows slammed the witnesses, while separating the witnesses from the death chamber, the lacrosse slammed with a cross-shaped gurney, with IV in his arms and hands. He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, not looking at the witnesses. Witnesses include John Lee Tysler’s father and fiance, who was raped and murdered by Lacroy 19 years ago, Justice Department spokeswoman Carrie Kupek said in a statement.
Lacroy’s spiritual counselor, Sister Barbara Batista, also stood a few feet from inside the chamber, bowed her head, and read softly from the prayer book.
Lacroy said last week that he did not want to play what is known as the “theater” surrounding his execution and therefore could not make a full statement within minutes of his death, Batista told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
When a prison official leaned over him Tuesday night and gently pulled Lacroy’s face mask off to ask if he had any final words, Lacroy responded calmly and factually. His last and only words were: “Sister Batista is about to receive my last statement at the postal service.”
Lacroy kept his eyes open as someone in the adjoining room began administering a lethal injection of pantorbital as he slipped out of his sight. Her eyelids became heavy when her midsection became uncontrollably heavy. After many more minutes, the color faded from his limbs, his face turned ashen and his lips turned blue. About 10 minutes later, an officer with a stethoscope entered the chamber, felt Lacroi’s wrist for a pulse, and then listened to his heart before officially declaring him dead.
The second execution of Christopher Vialva is scheduled for Thursday. He will be the first African American on the federal death row to die in a series of federal executions this year.
Critics say the resumption of federal executions this year by the Justice Department will help Trump claim to have completed the election day of law and order candidate. Proponents say Trump has long been providing relief justice to victims and their families.
In 2001, Lacroi entered the mountains of John Lee Tysler, Cheryllog, Georgia, waiting to return from a shopping trip. As she walked through the door, Lacroye attacked her with a shotgun, tied her up and raped her. He then slit her throat and repeatedly attacked her in the back.
Lacroy knew Tysler because he lived near a relative’s house and she often visited him. She later told investigators she believed she was probably out of her older parents when she called Tinkerbell, who Lacroy claimed he sexually molested her as a child. After killing Tysler, he realized that probably. Can’t be true.
Two days after Tytler’s murder, Lacroy was arrested for driving Tychler’s truck after passing a U.S. checkpoint in Minnesota en route to Canada.
Officers found a note written by Lacroy before his arrest, in which he apologized to Tysler, according to court filings. “You were an angel and I killed you,” he read.
“Justice was finally served today. William Lacroy died more peacefully than the horror he inflicted on my daughter John, “the victim’s father, Tom Tysler, said in a statement.
“I do not know whether he repented for his evil deeds, for his criminal life, or for the horrible burden of John’s loved one,” the statement said.
A few hours before the execution, Batista, waiting near the jail, grabbed a bag of caramel chocolates, which he said was a lacrosse favorite. In a conversation with her on the day of the execution, she said they were considering her possible death and resigned.
“He said, ‘You know, once we weren’t and then we are and then we are not.’ “It was reflective. He doesn’t seem worried. “
Lacroy joined the Army in the 17th, but was soon allowed to go to the WWOL and later talked about his interest in witchcraft, which had previously begun on prison burglary, child molestation and other charges.
He made a fuss several days before the murder about how Tessler is a tinker bell and that attacking him would reverse the hacks placed on him. After he cut his throat, he went to Tysler’s computer to find books about witchcraft, the filings said in court.
He was convicted in 2004 on a federal charge of carjacking, which resulted in his death, and a jury recommended the death penalty.
Lacroy’s lawyers made a failed attempt to stop the execution, arguing that the lawyers at his hearing did not properly emphasize evidence about his upbringing and mental health that could persuade the jury not to impose the death sentence. U.S. His last-minute appeal was also rejected in the Supreme Court.
In previous years, before the restoration of the Trump administration’s year of execution, the federal government executed only three people – all in the early 2000s. Among them was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McQueen.
