The US government executes a man convicted of killing a teenager

WARNING: graphic content

A man convicted of kidnapping and raping a 16-year-old Texas girl before dousing her with gasoline and burying her alive was executed on Thursday (Friday NZT), the eighth federal inmate to be executed this year after a hiatus of nearly two decades.

Orlando Hall, 49, was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m. ET (5.47 p.m. NZT) after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

In his last words, Hall invited others to Islam, thanked those who supported him and tried to reassure them by saying, “I’m fine.”

After a statement recounting his crimes was read, Hall took one last opportunity to look at his followers and say, “Take care. Tell my children I love you.”

The late-night execution came after the Supreme Court denied last-minute legal challenges from Hall’s attorneys, who had argued that racial bias played a role in his sentencing and also raised concerns about protocol. enforcement and other constitutional issues.

As the drug was administered, Hall lifted his head, appeared to wince briefly, and shifted his feet. He seemed to mutter to himself and twice he opened his mouth wide, as if he were yawning. He then stopped breathing and shortly after, an officer with a stethoscope entered the execution chamber to check for a heartbeat before Hall was officially declared dead.

Before the Trump administration resumed federal executions this year, only three federal prisoners had been executed in the past 56 years. Two other executions are scheduled for later this year, although a judge on Thursday (local time) said one of them could not be carried out before the end of the year, and President-elect Joe Biden has not said whether the federal executions will continue. when he takes office.

Hall was one of five men convicted of the kidnapping and death of Lisa Rene in 1994.

Federal court documents said Hall was a marijuana dealer in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who sometimes bought his drugs in the Dallas area. He arrived in Dallas on September 24, 1994, met two men at a car wash, and gave them $ 4,700 in the expectation that they would return later with the marijuana. The two men were Rene’s brothers.

Instead, the men claimed their car and the money was stolen in a robbery. Hall and his accomplices assumed they were lying and were able to trace the address of the brothers’ apartment in Arlington, Texas.

When Hall and three other men arrived at the apartment, the brothers were not there. Lisa Rene was at home, alone.

“She was studying for a test and had her textbooks on the couch when these guys knocked on the front door,” said retired Arlington detective John Stanton Sr.

In a statement issued by prison officials, her older sister, Pearl Rene, said the execution “marks the end of a very long and painful chapter in our lives.”

“My family and I are very relieved that this is over. We have been dealing with this for 26 years and now we have to relive the tragic nightmare our beloved Lisa went through,” he said.

“Ending this painful process will be an important goal for our family. This is just the end of the legal aftermath. The execution of Orlando Hall will never stop the suffering we continue to endure.”

Court records offer a chilling account of the terror his sister faced.

“They’re trying to break down my door! Hurry!” the victim told a 911 dispatcher. A gasp was heard seconds later, with a man saying, “Who are you talking to on the phone?”

The line was then cut.

Stanton said the men broke a sliding glass door to get in and immediately left with Rene. Police arrived within minutes, but the men, and Rene, were already gone, Stanton said, still wincing at the possibility of thwarting the crime from its inception.

“It was one that I will never forget,” Stanton said. “This was particularly egregious.”

The men headed to a motel in Pine Bluff. Rene was repeatedly sexually assaulted during the trip and at the motel for the next two days.

On September 26, Hall and two other men took Rene to the Byrd Lake Nature Area in Pine Bluff, his eyes covered by a mask. They took her to a grave that they had dug the day before. Hall put a sheet over Rene’s head and then hit her on the head with a shovel.

She tried to run but was dragged into the grave, doused with gasoline before dirt was thrown on her.

A coroner determined that Rene was still alive when she was buried and suffocated to death in the grave, where she was found eight days later.

Crossing the Texas-Arkansas line made the case a federal crime. One of Hall’s accomplices, Bruce Webster, was also sentenced to death, but the sentence was overturned last year because he has an intellectual disability. Three other men, including Hall’s brother, received lesser sentences in exchange for their cooperation in the trial.

Hall’s attorneys contend that jurors recommending the death penalty were not informed of the severe trauma he faced as a child or that he once saved a 3-year-old nephew from drowning by jumping into a motel pool from a balcony.

Donna Keogh, 67, met Hall 16 years ago when she and other volunteers from her Catholic church established a program to provide Christmas gifts to the children of inmates at Terre Haute Prison. They corresponded by email until days before his death.

Keogh said Hall had two children, ages 28 and 27, and 13 grandchildren.

Hall changed his life in prison, educated himself and became an avid reader, Keogh said. He couldn’t understand the value of running it.

“My faith tells me that all life is precious and that includes lives on death row,” Keogh said. “I just don’t see any purpose.”

Hall’s attorney, Marcy Widder, issued a statement after the execution saying: “Tonight, the federal government took the life of a man who spent the last quarter of a century regretting his role in Lisa Rene’s death and trying hard each day by becoming a better father, brother, son and human being in honor of his memory. The world did not become a better place because of his death; rather, we are all diminished by our government’s ruthless desire to kill. and its devaluation of hope and redemption. “

Five of the first six federal executions this year involved white men; the other was a Navajo. Christopher Vialva, who was black, was executed on September 24 for killing an Iowa couple visiting Texas in 1999.

Critics have argued that executing white prisoners first was a political calculation in a nation embroiled in racial bias concerns involving the criminal justice system.

A September report from the Washington, DC-based Death Penalty Information Center said blacks continue to be overrepresented on death row, including federal death row. The organization’s database shows that 25 of the 55 federal inmates on death row (46 percent) are black, while blacks make up only about 13 percent of the American population.