Virginia executes double-murderer

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Convicted double-murderer Darick Demorris Walker, 37, was put to death tonight by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va. The time of death was 9:24 p.m.

Earlier tonight, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Walker’s request for a stay of execution, which removed any hope he had of escaping his sentence. Last week, Gov. Bob McDonnell rejected Walker’s plea for clemency.

Walker was convicted of two separate murders in Richmond, the last of which occurred 13 years ago.

According to trial records, on Nov. 22, 1996, Walker broke into the apartment of Stanley Beale, pointed a gun at him and asked: “What you keep coming up to my door? What you looking for me for?” Beale told Walker he did not know him, Walker then shot Beale to death in front of his 13-year-old daughter.

The other murder occurred on June 18, 1997, when Walker forced his way into the home of Clarence Elwood Threat, after the man’s girlfriend turned Walker down for a date. Walker shot Threat seven times.

Throughout his lengthy appeals process, Walker made various claims including that he was mentally disabled.

The execution was Virginia's 107th since the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the resumption of the death penalty. Only Texas has carried out more executions with 451.

In Virginia, the condemned are given the choice of death either by lethal injection or the electric chair. On March 18, convicted murderer, rapist Paul Warner Powell chose the electric chair, making him only the third to do so since the Commonwealth began using lethal injection as a means of execution in 1994.

 

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