DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 1997                TAG: 9704080348
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   41 lines

MAN WHO KILLED KIN SLATED TO DIE BY INJECTION TONIGHT

Douglas MacArthur Buchanan Jr., convicted and sentenced to die for killing his father, stepmother and two stepbrothers, will be executed tonight unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes.

Buchanan, 29, was convicted of using a rifle, a pistol and a knife to kill his family Sept. 15, 1987, in their Amherst County home after years of mistreatment.

Buchanan never denied the killings. An expert witness testified he suffered from an emotionally brutal upbringing and acted ``under extreme mental or emotional disturbance'' when he killed his family.

In an appeal to the Supreme Court, Buchanan's attorneys contend that the trial judge should have allowed more testimony about Buchanan's upbringing. They also argued that the jury should have been given more detailed instructions on mitigating circumstances before it deliberated whether to sentence Buchanan to life or death.

Gerald T. Zerkin, one of Buchanan's attorneys, said there are no plans to submit a clemency petition to the governor.

The slayings started after Buchanan's father, Douglas MacArthur Buchanan Sr., insulted the younger Buchanan's birth mother. The younger Buchanan shot his father in the back of the head and between the eyes. Then he shot his stepbrothers, 10-year-old Donnie and 13-year-old Joel, and dragged them to a bedroom. When Joel got up, Buchanan stabbed him five times. Last to die was his stepmother, Geraldine Patterson Buchanan.

Buchanan and his wife, Christianne Marie Buchanan, fled and were later arrested in New Mexico.

Christianne Buchanan is serving four life terms on four counts of being an accessory before the fact and encouraging her husband in the slayings.

Buchanan met with his attorneys and a minister Monday, said Department of Corrections spokesman David Botkins. He is scheduled to die by injection at 9 tonight at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. KEYWORDS: DEATH ROW CAPITAL PUNISHMENT LETHAL INJECTION

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