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| Virginia Executes Man for 1995 Triple Murder |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 10/22/2001 |
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A man who confessed to ambushing and killing his former boss and two other people in a 1995 rampage was put to death by lethal injection in a Virginia prison on Thursday, the second execution in the state this year. Christopher James Beck, who defense attorneys argued should have been spared the death sentence because of physical, sexual and emotional abuse he suffered as a child, was executed after last-ditch pleas for clemency were rejected. Beck, 26, was pronounced dead at 9:03 p.m. EDT. Prison spokesman Larry Traylor said Beck made a lengthy final statement before he was injected with lethal chemicals at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, about 50 miles south of the state capital in Richmond. 'I'm sorry for everything I've done. The burden I carry is greater than any ... . This (execution) is nothing compared to what is on my shoulders,' Traylor quoted Beck as saying. Beck confessed to laying in wait at the Arlington, Virginia, home of William Miller, 52, a former employer who had fired him from a job. Miller died from several gunshots to the head. Beck also was convicted of raping and murdering Florence Marks, 54, who was shot twice in the head, and killing David Kaplan, 34, who was shot seven times in the head and upper chest. Marks and Kaplan rented rooms from Miller in his home. Beck confessed to the murders but maintained he did not rape Marks. He told police he mistook her for Miller and shot her when she walked through the door, then staged the rape to make it look like she was killed by a stranger. He was given three death sentences and four life terms, plus 53 years in prison for the rampage. Defense attorneys had sought clemency for Beck, saying he had been sexually assaulted as a child by an older boy. When he was 11, his face was cut by a broken bottle during a fight over a toy, leaving him with a scar he carried for life. Beck, who declined to have the contents of his last meal released, spent his last day visiting with his family, his lawyers and his spiritual adviser, prison officials said. He was the 82nd person executed in Virginia, which trails only Texas in the number of executions since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976. |
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