Paul Powell Meets Old Sparky Tonight

MoonHowler
The electric chair (for death penalty) at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt,
The electric chair (for death penalty) at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt,

Today is the end of the line for rapist and killer Paul Powell.  It’s over.  He will have his last meal.  He is dead man walking.  All the cliches.  He dies tonight in the electric chair.  It has been a long 11 year process to bring justice for this heinous crime. 

Powell was convicted for raping and killing Yorkshire teen  Stacie Reed.  He also raped her sister and slit her throat.  Her mother will attend the execution. 

Powell will  ‘ride the lightning.’    And after it is over, a mother is still left without a child, and a young woman  is left without her sister.  And all the riding of the lightning in the world really won’t right the wrong that has been done to this family. 

link to the history on this horrific crime.

picture credits above

UPDATE:  Paul Powell was pronounced dead at  9:09 pm  tonight.

Execution of Beltway Sniper on Schedule

MoonHowler

The execution of Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad is on schedule.

Today should be the last day on earth for John Allen Muhammad if all goes as planned.  He is set to die by lethal injection on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 at 9 pm.   John Muhammad masterminded a killing spree that lasted in the D.C area from October 3 to October 23, 2002 when he and his young accomplice Lee Boyd  Malvo were caught sleeping at a rest stop in Maryland.

Things might have all gone differently had  then Attorney General John Ashcroft not decided to hand Mohammd over to Virginia rather than Maryland where most of the killings took place.  Maryland had its death penalty on hold.  Virginia was known for taking care of  the death penalty quickly. 

Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert had a good track record when it came to trying death penalty cases. And once again he did not let us down. 

If there was ever a poster child for the death penalty, it is John Allen Muhammad.

UPDATE: 11/9/09  The US Supreme Court has denied Mohammad a stay of execution.  Unless Governor Kaine grants him one, the execution is scheduled to take place on Tuesday at 9 pm.