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  1. #1
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    Frank Athen Walls - Florida Death Row




    Facts of the Crime:

    According to statements made by Frank Walls, in the early morning of July 22, 1987, he entered the mobile home of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson with the intention of committing a burglary. Walls purposefully knocked over a fan while entering the house, waking both Alger and Peterson. When the two came to investigate the noise, Walls told Alger to lie on the floor and had Peterson tie his hands behind his back, bind his ankles and gag him. He then told Peterson to lie on the floor so he could restrain her in the same manner. Alger managed to free himself from the restraints and attacked Walls.

    While struggling, Walls cut Alger’s throat with a knife that he had brought with him. Alger then bit Wall’s leg, causing him to drop his knife. Walls then shot Alger in the head three times. Walls returned to where Peterson was restrained and found her crying, attempting to speak through the gag. Walls removed the gag from her mouth and untied her. After learning Alger was dead, a struggle ensued between Walls and Peterson, during which time he tore off her clothes. Walls then shot Peterson in the back of the head. Peterson survived the first shot and continued to scream. Walls forced her face into a pillow and fatally shot her again. The bodies were discovered later that day when Alger failed to show up for work. Investigators obtained a warrant to search Walls’ mobile home based on information provided by Walls’ former roommate, who lived near the victims. Investigators seized evidence from Walls’ residence linking him to the murders, which subsequently led to his arrest.

    Walls was re-sentenced to death in Okaloosa County on July 29, 1992.

  2. #2
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    WALLS v. BUSS

    In an opinion dated September 28, 2011, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals AFFIRMED the district court's DENIAL of Walls' petition for habeas relief.

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Walls' petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis was DENIED.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  4. #4
    tbokar
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    About six months ago, somewhere on this website, which I cannot find now. There was a post talking about "Frank Walls needed to die, and so should his mother". Now I certainly understand why people would feel the way they do where Frank is concerned, I just don't comprehend the comment where his mother is concerned? He was raised in a good household, with a career military father and his mother from Germany with very old world values. They raised their son with morals and values and certainly never thought they would see the day that their son would do what he did. Now as a result of their sons crimes they have had to live a life as "hermits". They do not make friends because it is too hard when people find out about their son. Should every parent be blamed for crimes their child may have commited? As I live in Ohio and was not in FL when these events occurred, is there something that everyone else knows about the parents that I don't? This families lives has also been a nightmare since Frank committed his crimes. His parents feel awful about what their son did to these people and their families. I understand people's need for "justice" and I hope that when Frank finally has to serve out his sentence, that is brings some type of peace and justification for the families of the victims. I also hope, that at that time, there is some peace for his parents. Although, this is a nightmare that will follow them until the day they take their last breath also. Just remember, it is not always the parents fault.
    Last edited by tbokar; 08-18-2012 at 05:16 AM.

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    ON DEATH ROW: Walls competency hearing set — for 2020

    A hearing to determine whether an intellectual disability should spare serial killer Frank Walls a date with an executioner has been set.

    By the time it is held — March 23, 2020 — Walls will have been on death row for 32 years.

    A short hearing was held Monday at which Assistant State Attorney John Molchan successfully negotiated a date certain for the competence case to be heard. The motion is one of the last Walls will be entitled to file before a death warrant is signed in his case.

    Defense attorneys have successfully pushed the date for the competence hearing back several times by arguing that the experts they need to call to testify are not available, Molchan said.

    It is an argument frequently heard in Florida these days, Molchan said. Numerous death-penalty cases have been ordered retried in the state following a Florida Supreme Court ruling that said jury verdicts in such cases must be unanimous.

    “We’re seeing that pretty commonly,” Molchan said. “With all the retrials, there’s been a ripple effect.”

    Walls was sent to death row in 1988. He was convicted of three murders and admitted to two others. He was sentenced to death for the July 22, 1987 murders of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson, who were brutally killed in their Ocean City trailer.

    He has also admitted to the March 26, 1985 slaying of Tommie Lou Whiddon, the Sept. 16, 1986 murder of Cynthia Condra and the May 20, 1987 murder of Audrey Gygi.

    The intellectual disability motion was made following a U.S. Supreme Court determination that Florida had acted unconstitutionally by using a single “bright line” IQ score of 70 to determine whether a killer could be put to death.

    Walls, who lived in the Ocean City-Wright area prior to his conviction, has been determined to have an IQ of 72.

    https://www.thedestinlog.com/news/20...set---for-2020
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  6. #6
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    Ridiculous. This adds about 3 years to the earliest Walls can be executed. Atkins v Virginia strikes again.

  7. #7
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Well, that's judicial activism for you. I would call it a flawed ideology, but it's more than that when you see cases like Walls get delayed. Activism from the bench is decay, and not a creeping decay - it is full-blown rot. Just like gingivitis is a creeping decay that progresses into the full rot of perionditis.

    Hope DeSantis signs a warrant as soon as this claim inevitably fails.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Serial killer Frank Walls ruled smart enough to be held responsible for 1980s-era murders

    By Tom McLaughlin
    Northwest Florida Daily News

    SHALIMAR — More than 33 years after he arrived on death row in August 1988, Frank Walls, Okaloosa County's most notorious serial killer, might have run out of arguments as to why he should be spared paying the ultimate price for his crimes.

    He has not, however, run out of appeals, and last week's decision by Okaloosa County Cirucuit Court Judge William Stone to deny Walls' claim that an "intellectual disability" should prevent the state from putting him to death likely will be appealed at both the state and federal levels, according to Assistant State Attorney John Molchan.

    Nonetheless, Stone's detailed order denying Walls' motion at the trial court level constituted a "significant achievement," Molchan said, for himself and the team of First Judicial Circuit prosecutors who worked to convince the court of the falsity of Walls' claims.

    Walls was 20 in 1988 when he was originally sentenced to death for the killing of Ann Louise Peterson, who died alongside her boyfriend Edward K. Alger during a robbery at their Ocean City-area house trailer.

    Walls received a sentence of life in prison for the murder of Alger and for the killings of three others he would later confess to.

    In 1993, a grand jury indicted Walls for the murder of 47-year-old Audrey Gygi, who was stabbed to death inside her trailer on Duval Street sometime between late Tuesday, May 19, 1987, and early the following day. Gygi's trailer was a block away from the one Alger and Peterson would be killed in on Jackson Street later that summer.

    Walls agreed to plead no contest to the Gygi murder in a deal that ensured he would not receive a second death sentence. At that time he also acknowledged killing Tommie Lou Whiddon and Cynthia Sue Condra.

    Whiddon’s throat had been slashed in the spring of 1985 when Walls happened upon her as she sunbathed on Okaloosa Island. He was on the beach doing community service for crimes that included cruelty to animals and peeking into people's windows, authorities said.

    Condra, a 24-year-old mother of three, was stabbed 21 times on Sept. 16, 1986. Walls left her body in a wooded area off Lewis Turner Boulevard.

    All of Walls' crimes were in some way sexually motivated, according to Dennis Haley and Don Vinson, two law enforcement officers who investigated the killings.

    Walls had to be retried shortly after the original conviction when an appeals court threw out the first verdict. He was convicted in the second trial, re-sentenced to death and sent back to death row in 1992.

    He's been fighting to have the death penalty overturned ever since.

    The hearing on Walls' intellectual disability claim was held between June 29 and July 7, court documents show. It originally had been scheduled for hearing in February 2017.

    It became necessary following a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court determination that Florida acted unconstitutionally by using a single “bright line” IQ score of 70 to determine whether a killer could be put to death. That opened the door for death row inmates with IQ’s hovering around 70 — Walls had been determined to have an IQ of 72 — to present their case for intellectual disability.

    The Florida Supreme Court stated following the U.S. Supreme Court decision that Walls should receive a hearing on his motion for reconsideration due to intellectual disability even though it was filed following the U.S. Supreme Court decision that the 70 IQ bright line was unconstitutional.

    But it would later change course and say the Walls case did not have to be heard retroactively. Stone, however, ruled that since he already had committed to a hearing that one could be held.

    Although Stone stated in his final ruling that the fact that Walls' case couldn't be heard retroactively had led him to reject the intellectually deficient claim. He also spelled out in a 21-page ruling why Walls' argument didn't work.

    Stone took particular interest in arguments by the prosecution that for most of his young life, from childhood into adolescence, he had tested around 100 on IQ tests. His scores, experts testified, dropped by an unheard of 29 points only after he was incarcerated and sought an intellectually disabled defense.

    Prosecutors also produced phone records from Union Correctional Institution where Walls is sentenced in which he discussed with family members his weight concerns and a diet regimen.

    A prosecution expert testified that when he later asked Walls about his height and weight, Walls consulted a badge to provide the information, "which was a big red flag for me," Stone wrote in his ruling, paraphrasing the expert witness.

    "The most credible explanation for the decline shown in IQ scores in 1991 and 2006 is an intentional underperformance by defendant," Stone wrote.

    Walls' team of experts also testified that their client struggled with "adaptive" behaviors that included things like speech and memory. Stone found that while there was some evidence of struggles with adaptive behavior, Walls' "adaptive deficiencies are not of a severity that would suggest his intellectual functioning is comparable to that of a person with significantly subaverage intellectual functioning."

    https://www.nwfdailynews.com/story/n...ce/8795152002/
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  9. #9
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    Matt Gaetz: Legislation could shorten Frank Walls’ stay on death row

    State Rep. Matt Gaetz is eager to give serial killer Frank Walls something to contemplate as he sits in his cell on death row at the Union Correctional Institute.

    Gaetz believes legislation he has introduced, if passed, could significantly lessen the time Walls will have left before his date with the executioner.

    “If the Timely Justice Act becomes law, Mr. Walls is going to have to start thinking about what his last meal is going to be,” Gaetz said.

    The Fort Walton Beach Republican last week sought to add language to the Timely Justice bill that would require the governor to sign execution warrants within 30 days of the conclusion of a death row inmate’s appeals.

    Read the bill for yourself. >>

    He said Scott “has engaged in the language of the bill and is involved in drafting the legislation.”

    Walls, described in long-ago news articles as an itinerant dishwasher, petty thief and horror movie buff, was convicted July 18, 1988, for the murders of Edward Alger Jr. and Ann Peterson during a burglary at their house trailer in Ocean City on July 22, 1987.

    The heinous nature of the crimes — he shot both victims and slashed Alger’s throat — convinced a jury that Walls deserved to be executed. He was put on Florida’s death row Aug. 24, 1988, and has remained there for almost 25 years.

    Walls was suspected to have been involved in as many as four other local killings.

    Records indicate Walls’ most recent appeal was denied last April, and a “transitional cases” document provided by Gaetz’s office states his is one of almost 100 death row cases in Florida that “appear to have exhausted all filing options.”

    “Frank Walls has no pending litigation before any court. He is warrant ripe,” Gaetz said. “If this legislation passes, my belief is the governor will very promptly be signing his death warrant.”

    Also appearing on the transitional list Gaetz provided is Daniel Peterka, who was sentenced to death in 1990 for the 1989 killing of his roommate, John Russell.

    Read the list for yourself. >>

    They shared a home in Wright, and Peterka apparently killed Russell to steal his identity.

    Nowhere on the transitional list is the name of Edward Zakrzewski.

    In 1994, Zakrzewski brutally beat his wife to death inside the couple’s home in Mary Esther, then chopped up his children with a machete. He was received on death row on April 19, 1996.

    Also not appearing on the list are Jeffrey Hutchinson or Lamar Brooks.

    Hutchinson, who killed his girlfriend and her three young children with a shotgun, has been on death row since 2001.

    Brooks has been on death row since 1998 following his conviction for fatally stabbing an Eglin Air Force Base airman and her 3-month-old child.

    http://www.nwfdailynews.com/local/ma...h-row-1.130024
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #10
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Ruling may delay serial killer’s execution

    By TOM McLAUGHLIN
    The Northwest Florida Daily News

    Rep. Matt Gaetz, who pushed for a state law aimed at speeding up imposition of the death penalty, isn’t happy with Tuesday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

    A signed execution warrant seemed imminent for Frank Walls, a serial killer convicted in Okaloosa County and sent to death row in 1988.

    But the high court ruling will likely change that.

    “I’ve been working for more than a year to introduce that guy to his maker,” Gaetz said.

    The court ruled 5-4 that Florida acted unconstitutionally by using a single “bright line” IQ score of 70 to determine whether a killer could be put to death.

    Walls’ IQ has been pegged at 72. Bill Eddins, state attorney for Florida’s First Judicial Circuit, predicted if his death warrant is signed this year it will be challenged both in the U.S. and Florida Supreme Courts.

    “We’ll make every effort possible to uphold the death penalty in that case,” Eddins said.

    Walls pleaded no contest to the 1987 murder of Audrey Gygi and was convicted and sentenced to die in 1988 for the murders of Edward Alger Jr. and Ann Peterson.

    He also admitted to killing two other women after reaching a plea agreement in the Gygi case.

    Walls’ name appeared last October on a list as one of 123 death row inmates who had seemingly exhausted all or most of their appeals.

    The clerk of Florida’s Supreme Court had sent the certification letter to the governor to comply with the Timely Justice Act of 2013, sponsored by Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach.

    Gaetz said the U.S. Supreme Court decision will likely delay the administration of justice for several death row inmates, including Walls.

    “It is unlikely Gov. Scott is going to be able to sign death warrants for death row inmates with pending appeal hearings based on mental retardation,” Gaetz said. “The Supreme Court has launched countless death row cases into an appeals’ oblivion.”

    Eddins, however, was of the opinion that the Supreme Court was attempting to make sure justices were using criteria other than an IQ score to determine which inmates suffer “intellectual disability” and which others could be put to death.

    He said he’s confident judges in the First Judicial Circuit met the assessment standard the Supreme Court required and his office would not need to review any local death penalty cases.

    “We will not be dramatically affected by that ruling,” he said.

    State Senate President Don Gaetz said the federal court ruling was an admonishment of the high court justices.

    “Florida law provides plenty of ways you can assess intellectual ability,” said Don Gaetz, R-Niceville. “The problem wasn’t the law it was the Florida Supreme Court.”

    LOCAL DEATH ROW ROSTER

    Serial Killer Frank Walls is one of six death row inmates from this region who appeared on the Supreme Court list as having exhausted appeals.

    Also on the list are Daniel Peterka, Edward Zakrzewski and Jeffrey Hutchinson of Okaloosa County, Bruce Pace, Gary Lawrence, Jeremiah Rodgers and Michael Hernandez of Santa Rosa County and Ernest Suggs and Thomas McCoy of Walton County.

    http://www.nwfdailynews.com/local/ru...ution-1.325581

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