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The US government has executed a former soldier who said an obsession with witchcraft led him to kill a Georgia nurse who he believed had bewitched him.
William Emmett LeCroy, 50, was pronounced dead at 9:06 p.m. (local time) after receiving a lethal injection at the same US prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where five others were executed in 2020 later. of a period of 17 years without federal authorization. execution.
Lawyers had asked US President Donald Trump in a petition to commute LeCroy’s sentence to life in prison, saying LeCroy’s brother, Georgia State Trooper Chad LeCroy, was killed during a traffic stop of routine in 2010 and that the death of another son would devastate his family.
The execution began nearly three hours later than scheduled when LeCroy’s lawyers made a last-minute failed attempt to convince the Supreme Court to issue a stay.
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When a curtain was lifted across the glass windows that separated witnesses from the death chamber, LeCroy was lying tied to a cross-shaped gurney, with IVs in his forearms and hands.
He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, not turning to look at the witnesses. The witnesses included the father and fiancé of Joann Lee Tiesler, whom LeCroy raped and stabbed to death 19 years ago, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement.
LeCroy’s spiritual advisor, Sister Barbara Battista, stood a few feet away inside the chamber, head bowed and quietly reading a prayer book.
LeCroy had said last week that he did not want to participate in what he called the “theater” surrounding his execution and therefore might not make a full statement in the minutes leading up to his death, Battista told The Associated Press on Tuesday. early.
When a prison official leaned over him Tuesday night and gently removed LeCroy’s face mask to ask if he had any final words, LeCroy responded calmly and naturally. His last and only words were: “Sister Battista is about to receive my last statement from the postal service.”
LeCroy kept his eyes open as someone out of sight in an adjoining room began administering the lethal injection of pentobarbital. His eyelids grew heavy as his abdomen began to flail uncontrollably.
Alex Brandon / AP
Critics say the resumption of federal executions is a cynical attempt to help Trump reclaim the mantle of law and order candidate.
After several more minutes, the color faded from her extremities, her face turned pale, and her lips turned blue. After about 10 more minutes, an officer with a stethoscope entered the chamber, felt for the pulse in LeCroy’s wrist and then listened to his heart before declaring him officially dead.
Another execution, of Christopher Vialva, is scheduled for Thursday. He would be the first African-American sentenced to federal death to be executed in this year’s series of federal executions.
Critics say the resumption of federal executions by the Justice Department this year is a cynical gamble to help Trump reclaim the candidate mantle of law and order before Election Day. Supporters say Trump is providing justice to the victims and their families.
LeCroy broke into Cherrylog, Georgia, Joann Lee Tiesler’s mountain home on October 7, 2001, and waited for her to return from a shopping trip. When she walked in the door, LeCroy hit her with a shotgun, tied her up, and raped her. He then slit her throat and repeatedly stabbed her in the back.
LeCroy had met Tiesler because he lived near a relative’s house and often greeted her as she passed. He later told investigators that he had come to believe that she could have been his former nanny whom he named Tinkerbell, whom LeCroy claimed sexually abused him as a child. After killing Tiesler, he realized that that couldn’t be true.
Two days after killing Tiesler, LeCroy was arrested driving Tiesler’s truck after passing a US checkpoint in Minnesota heading for Canada.
Authorities found a note LeCroy wrote prior to his arrest apologizing to Tiesler, according to court documents. “You were an angel and I killed you,” it said.
“Today justice was finally served. William LeCroy died a peaceful death in stark contrast to the horror it inflicted on my daughter Joann, ”the victim’s father, Tom Tiesler, said in a statement.
“I don’t know if he ever showed any remorse for his wrongdoing, his life of crime, or the horrible burden he placed on Joann’s loved ones,” the statement read.
A few hours before the execution, Battista, who was waiting near the prison, was holding a bag of caramel chocolate that she claimed was LeCroy’s favorite. In conversations with him in the days leading up to the execution, she said she had been considering his likely death and sounded resigned.
“He said, ‘You know, once we weren’t and then we are and then we aren’t,'” he said. He was thoughtful. He didn’t seem agitated. “
LeCroy joined the military at age 17, but was soon discharged for being absent and later spoke about an interest in witchcraft that began during a previous stint in prison for robbery, child abuse and other charges.
He had pondered for days before the murder how Tiesler was Tinkerbell and that assaulting her would reverse a spell she put on him. After slitting her throat, she went to Tiesler’s computer to search for books on witchcraft, according to court documents.
He was convicted in 2004 of a federal count of vehicle theft resulting in death and a jury recommended the death penalty.
LeCroy’s attorneys had tried unsuccessfully to stop the execution and argued that his trial attorneys failed to adequately emphasize evidence on his education and mental health that could have persuaded jurors not to impose a death sentence. His last-minute appeal to the Supreme Court was also rejected.
Over the past 56 years, before the Trump administration’s re-executions this year, the federal government had executed just three people, all in the early 2000s. Oklahoma City terrorist Timothy McVeigh was among them. .
