Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 21, 1990 TAG: 9007210102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
"We didn't know about it at the time because we were outside and so far removed from what was going on," said Julie McConnell, director of Virginia Association to Abolish the Death Penalty.
"Hearing about it afterward, it seems ridiculous that he had to sit there for so long."
Boggs was put to death in the state's electric chair Thursday night for the 1984 murder and robbery of an elderly neighbor.
Boggs was led into the death chamber at 10:50 p.m. After being strapped in, he waited several minutes before the first jolt of electricity was administered.
Wayne Farrar, spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said Thursday night that Boggs was brought into the chamber earlier than others who have been put to death in Virginia. But after talking with other prison officials Friday, he said he had been mistaken.
Farrar said Boggs was taken out of the holding cell and led into the chamber at the same time as other condemned prisoners.
He said time is allotted for the inmate to make a final statement, and Boggs did not choose to make one. "He didn't have a statement, so the time allotted for that was down time," Farrar said.
"That's a long time to allow for making a statement," McConnell said. "I don't know what the normal amount of time is, but that seems like a lot."
McConnell also said prison officials could have asked ahead of time whether Boggs wanted to make a statement. "If he didn't want to make one, they could have waited a few minutes and spared him that waiting," she said.
Farrar said Thursday night that Boggs used meditation to calm himself during his wait. The death sentence was scheduled to be executed at 11 p.m. The first of two 2,500-volt surges of electricity came at 11:02 p.m. He was pronounced dead by a prison doctor five minutes later.
Boggs delivered a written statement to his attorneys to be given to family and friends, McConnell said. One of his attorneys, David Blatt of Washington, D.C., would not comment Friday on the statement.
Boggs was sentenced to death for the Jan. 25, 1984, robbery and slaying of his Portsmouth neighbor, Treeby M. Shaw, 87. She had just poured tea for Boggs when he beat her with a metal bar and stabbed her.
Boggs told police he killed the widow he had known all his life because he needed money for drugs. He took diamond rings from her fingers and family silver from the house.
by CNB