THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280371
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: THE EXECUTION OF DENNIS STOCKTON
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: JARRATT, VA. LENGTH: Long : 157 lines
After a last-minute frenzy of activity by lawyers on both sides, Dennis Walden Stockton was executed by lethal injection Wednesday night at Greensville Correctional Center.
Both the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. George F. Allen waited until the final two hours to decide they were unconvinced by last-minute witnesses who said Stockton was innocent.
In an eerie moment just before Stockton died, the telephone in the death chamber rang twice. Stockton was strapped to a gurney, intravenous tubes in both arms.
But it was a wrong number. A prison official picked it up and said, ``No, this is the death house,'' and hung up.
Seven minutes later, Stockton, 55, the dean of Virginia's death row, died - 12 years after a jury convicted him of the 1978 killing and dismemberment of an 18-year-old in a murder-for-hire in western Virginia.
To the end, Stockton maintained his innocence.
In a final written statement, Stockton, who has written several unpublished books, let one of his fictional characters speak for him. The character said, ``Dennis is a victim of a crime in the worst kind of way. May God not hold the feelings of his enemies toward him against them.''
In the moments before his death, staring at the ceiling, Stockton recited from memory a passage from Isaiah: ``Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.'' He made no other comments.
The execution came after a flurry of unsuccessful last-minute appeals.
Two hours before the execution, the Supreme Court unanimously denied Stockton's final appeal, without comment. That was at 6:55 p.m.
An hour later, at 7:45 p.m., the governor rejected Stockton's appeal for clemency. Allen could have converted Stockton's sentence to life in prison, or stayed the execution.
The governor had sent state police on Tuesday to interview a North Carolina sheriff and to examine jail records to verify that another man who some say committed the murder was in jail at the time of the killing.
``The governor carefully weighed the information provided by Mr. Stockton's attorneys . . . as well as the numerous court decisions . . . and other relevant information. . . . Governor Allen has concluded that there is no reasonable factual basis for intervening,'' said Ken Stroupe, an Allen spokesman.
After the execution, one of Stockton's lawyers, Steve Rosenfield, said angrily, ``It's hard to understand why the state is in such a hurry after this length of time. . . . The state maybe wants to save a few bucks at the cost of innocent lives, and Dennis Stockton is one of them.''
In the hours before his death, Stockton was upbeat. At one point, over a final meal of grilled cheese and french fries, Stockton became upset when a minister, Ronald O. Smith of Florida, got teary-eyed.
``The last hours of my life I'm not going to do this. I want you to be strong,'' Stockton told Smith, then prayed for God to give the minister strength. ``Thank you, God,'' Stockton said, ``that you've already given me strength.''
Stockton appeared haggard, old and thin in his orange prison jumpsuit and horn-rimmed glasses.
He was the 27th inmate executed in Virginia - and the 300th in America - since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Only Texas and Florida have executed more inmates than Virginia.
The mother of murder victim Kenny Ardner applauded Stockton's execution.
``There's no doubt whatsoever that Stockton is the killer,'' Wilma Arnder said. ``He's a cold-blooded killer who has no conscience.''
But a national death-penalty group called the execution distressing.
``It bodes for disaster in the future,'' said Steven Hawkins, director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. ``Apparently, we're going to see more and more people being put to death when their innocence is still questionable.''
The execution was a long time coming.
Stockton was convicted in 1983 of murdering Kenneth Arnder in 1978 in Patrick County, Va., hacking off both of Arnder's hands, then moving the body to North Carolina.
No physical evidence linked Stockton to Arnder, but a witness, Randy Bowman, testified that he heard Stockton agree to kill Arnder for $1,500 over a soured drug deal. A second man was arrested, but never tried.
Because Bowman said it was a contract killing, prosecutors were allowed to seek the death penalty.
Stockton was in Mecklenberg Correctional Center when, in May 1984, he witnessed the escape of six death row inmates - the only mass escape from death row in American history. The six fled in a prison van, wearing guards' uniforms, but were recaptured.
Stockton gained notoriety a few months later when his diaries of the escape were published in The Virginian-Pilot. He did not participate in the escape, but chronicled the planning and execution, detailing how guards brought contraband to the prisoners.
After that, Stockton was moved to another prison.
Stockton came within days of execution in 1986, but the case was appealed. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his death sentence, saying it was tainted by a prejudicial remark made to the jury during a lunch break.
The court offered Stockton a choice: life in prison or resentencing. Stockton demanded a resentencing, maintaining his innocence. A new jury again recommended death.
In 1990, Stockton's lawyers said he deserved a new hearing because the state did not disclose details of an alleged deal with Bowman, the chief witness against Stockton. Court records and a letter from Bowman to authorities supported this, but state officials and Bowman denied there was a deal.
This year, in April, Bowman told a Virginian-Pilot reporter that he never heard Stockton accept the offer to kill Arnder. Two weeks later, after a visit by investigators, Bowman said he had not recanted to the newspaper reporter.
Last week, three new witnesses came forward to say it was Bowman who had killed Arnder, not Stockton.
Two of those witnesses - Bowman's former wife and a former friend - said Bowman told them that he killed Arnder. Another witness, Bowman's son, said Bowman admitted killing a boy and disposing of the body.
Prosecutors called the new statements uncorroborated.
On Monday, the state attorney general's office filed its own statement to discredit the theory that Bowman was the murderer. The statement by Sheriff Connie R. Watson of Surry County, N.C., suggested that Bowman could not have been the killer because he was in jail at the time.
Watson said Bowman was in custody from July 3 to Aug. 16, 1978, on charges of reckless driving, speeding and eluding arrest. Arnder was killed some time between July 20 and July 25, 1978, when his body was discovered near the Mount Airy, N.C.
On Monday, a federal judge in Roanoke issued a 60-day stay of execution, agreeing to conduct a hearing on the new evidence.
But on Tuesday, a federal appeals court in Richmond overturned that stay, saying the new evidence was too little, too late. Stockton's last-minute claims of innocence were blocked by a state law barring new evidence beyond 21 days of conviction.
The appeals court wrote that the new witnesses were ``never tested by cross-examination,'' but that Watson's affidavit was persuasive. The court wrote: ``Last minute stays on the part of the federal court represent an interference with the orderly process of justice which should be avoided in all but the most extraordinary cases.''
On Wednesday, James Crabtree, the adopted father of Bowman's son, said he called the governor's office and ``I asked the governor not to let an innocent man go to his death.''
In the last few days, investigators from Virginia and North Carolina had contacted Crabtree to arrange interviews with the son, Timothy, but none had occurred by Wednesday, Crabtree said.
``If Stockton dies at this point, it's a mistake,'' Crabtree said Wednesday afternoon. ``The thing that's bothering me is the wrong man is paying the price. Once they push the plunger, there ain't no backing out.'' MEMO: Staff writers June Arney, Bill Burke, Marc Davis, Laura Lafay, Angelita
Plemmer and Lynn Waltz and the Associated Press helped report and write
this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Dennis
Stockton
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
Staff
Guards created a highly visible presence outside the fence of
Greensville Correctional Center Wednesday night as Dennis Stockton
was put to death for the 1978 murder of a teenager.
KEYWORDS: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT LETHAL INJECTION by CNB