Results 1 to 2 of 2

Thread: Aubrey Dennis Adams, Jr. - Florida Execution - May 4, 1989

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Aubrey Dennis Adams, Jr. - Florida Execution - May 4, 1989




    Aubrey Dennis Adams, Jr.

    Summary of Offense: Convicted for strangling eight-year-old Trisa Gail Thornley to death on January 23, 1978 in Ocala.

    Victim: Trisa Gail Thornley

    Time of Death: 7:04 a.m.

    Manner of execution: Electric Chair

    Last Meal: one pound of popcorn shrimp, one pound of medium-sized shrimp, one pound of jumbo shrimp (battered and fried), one loaf of garlic bread, french fries, pecan pie, pecan ice cream and iced tea.

    Final Statement: “My death is the Lord’s will and I am now with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in heaven.”

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    May 5, 1989

    Former Florida Prison Guard, 31, Is Electrocuted as Killer of Girl, 8


    A former prison guard who suffocated an 8-year-old girl 11 years ago was executed today in Florida's electric chair.

    The former guard, 31-year-old Aubrey Adams Jr., was pronounced dead five minutes after the chair's electricity was turned on at 7:04 A.M.

    He was the second person executed in Florida this year, and the 21st in the state and 108th in the nation since the United States Supreme Court's 1976 ruling that restored capital punishment. In January Theodore Bundy was executed in the death of Kimberly Diane Leach, a Lake City, Fla., schoolgirl. Condemned for Fourth Time

    Late Wednesday the Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 against an emergency request for a delay for Mr. Adams and turned down a formal appeal for a review of his death sentence.

    He was under his fourth death warrant for the Jan. 23, 1978, death of Trisa Gail Thornley, a third grader who was last seen on her way home from school in Ocala in central Florida. Her mutilated, naked body was found in a plastic bag two months later by hunters.

    This morning Trisa Gail's mother, Ann Thornley of Reliance, Tenn., joined 15 relatives and family friends in a pasture outside the prison before the execution.

    ''It's a decade too late, but we finally got justice today,'' Mrs. Thornley said. sid. ''I just wish my husband was here today. This killed him.'' Her husband, James Thornley, died late last year of heart problems. '' Pastor Reads Statement

    Seven people who oppose capital punishment kept a silent vigil of their own nearby.

    In the chair, Mr. Adams was asked if he had a final statement. ''My pastor will be making my last statement for me,'' he replied in a strong, clear voice.

    His pastor, the Rev. W. J. Barfield, left the prison without talking to witnesses or reporters, but was reached later at the Church of God in Newberry. Mr. Barfield said Mr. Adams had left a handwritten final statement that said, in part: ''I hope and pray that all the new and reopened wounds will be healed quickly after my passing. My death is the Lord's will and I am now with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in heaven.''

    Mr. Adams wrote that he ''forgives all those who have had anything against me.'' He said the death penalty was against Jesus' teaching. Obscene Call, Then Arrest

    Eleven years ago Mr. Adams, a state prison guard at Marion Correctional Institution from early 1977 until his arrest in March 1978, was arrested after an obscene phone call to the girl's home was traced to his home, and he eventually admitted picking her up. He later said he recalled she screamed and he placed his hand over her mouth to silence her, but not to kill her. An autopsy showed she suffocated.

    Mr. Adams had been under one death warrant in 1984 and two in 1986 after psychiatrists ruled him mentally competent to be executed. State law requires that inmates be able to understand why they are being punished. His mother, Marjorie Adams, of Trenton, Fla., wrote a letter to Gov. Bob Graham in 1979 appealing for clemency. It read, in part:

    ''You as a parent must know what dreams you have for your child. Mine are shattered. I once thought as a lot of others think that the death penalty was the right thing. I only hope and pray that no one has to have their thinking changed as I have. I love my son no matter what happens and would gladly die that he may live.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/05/us...xecuted&st=nyt

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •