Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 4, 1994 TAG: 9402040170
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BONNIE V. WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
But Margaret Lanham and Pauline Clark, whose daughters were stabbed, beaten and had their throats cut by the same man in encounters 10 years apart, wanted a bit of their own: To watch their daughters' murderer die in Virginia's electric chair.
After an emotional debate, the House of Delegates on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a bill to allow up to three members of a victim's family to be present at an execution. If there were multiple victims, a total of six relatives could witness the death.
The measure, sponsored by Del. Robert McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, advanced on a 53-42 vote. It will be up for final consideration today.
"To be truthful, I wanted to see him dead. Dead, dead, dead!" Lanham said Thursday in a telephone interview from her West Virginia home.
Lanham drove more than 300 miles from her home to stand outside the Greensville Correctional Center on Dec. 16 as David Mark Pruett was electrocuted.
Pruett, 44, was convicted for the 1985 rape and murder of his best friend's wife and Lanham's daughter, Wilma Lanham Harvey, 36, of Virginia Beach. He confessed both to Harvey's killing and the 1975 slaying of Debra Clark McInnis, 22, also of Virginia Beach. McInnis had worked with Pruett in the fast-food restaurant where he stabbed her, beat her and cut her throat.
"Unless you have lived with a situation like this, you cannot possibly understand our feelings," Pauline Clark of Chesapeake, McInnis' mother, said in a telephone interview.
"My husband stood there by her hospital bed, her head swollen the size of a basketball, and held her hand while she died. He told her: `I'm going to see them die.' "
State policy prevents family members and friends from being among the nine witnesses required by law to view an execution. The Clarks and the Lanhams were denied permission to view Pruett's execution.
McDonnell, sponsor of the bill, said the Allen administration supports it.
"I can't say I fully understand why they want to be there," he told the House. "But this is about healing and closure for many of the families. We should not let the state stand in their way."
Several delegates argued that the measure promotes pure vengeance - not healing - and that however vile and base their crimes, those strapped into the electric chair should die with dignity.
"The only closure these people are interested in is closure of the circuits on the switch," said Del. Jay DeBoer, D-Petersburg.
"It appalls me in the discussion of family values that this is the kind of family value we wish," DeBoer said.
But Lanham said she's tired of politicians coddling criminals.
"Everyday, I've begrudged every breath that he breathes. He got eight more years than Wilma," said Lanham. "I wanted to be there. In fact, I would have pulled the switch. That is justice."
Clark, upset by a television interview with her delegate, Lionell Spruill of Chesapeake, on the issue, fired off a letter demanding he publicly apologize for suggesting anyone wanting to view an execution is "sick."
"I'm not the horrible, blood-thirsty person everyone thinks," Clark said. "We've just been through a lot. It's time for it to be over."
"You tell me how that's going to bring the loved one back," Spruill said Thursday in response. "You tell me what satisfaction they get out of it.
"That's vengeance, and I'm not going to get into all that," Spruill said. "Vengeance is the Lord's."
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB