This week in 1993

“I was asked by somebody, I don’t remember who, if there was any way sex offenders could be stopped. I said no. I was wrong. I said there was no hope, no peace. There is peace. There is hope. I found both in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

— Westley Dodd, convicted of rape and murder, hanging, Washington.
Executed January 5, 1993

Shortly after Dodd was released from prison for having kidnapped a seven-year-old boy, he was arrested for raping and killing three other small boys. Dodd himself admitted guilt, and during his incarceration he claimed numerous times that child molesters could not be reformed. In court, Dodd was even quoted as saying: “I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone else. If I do escape, I promise you I will kill and rape again, and I will enjoy every minute of it.” Dodd was the last person to be hanged in the United States and the first in more than three decades.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported:
“[Dodd] chose hanging over lethal injection because, he said, he had hanged his youngest victim’s body in a closet after killing him.”