This week in 1984

“Many of my friends have mentioned to me to look for the light, but I already saw the light when I accepted Christ as Lord many years ago. Only now I get to go stand in it and enjoy it with the Lord.”

— Carl Shriner, convicted of murder, electric chair, Florida.
Executed June 20, 1984

Described by the Associated Press as a “boyish-faced drifter,” Shriner faced the electric chair for the shooting death of store clerk Judith Ann Carter. In an earlier prison interview, the thirty-year-old Shriner said, “Police, prosecutors . . . are powerful. They can make anybody look guilty if they want to.”