This week 1993
“I’d just like to say I don’t hate nobody. What I did was wrong. I hope everybody is satisfied with what is about to happen.”
— Richard J. Wilkerson, convicted of murder, lethal injection, Texas.
Executed August 31, 1993
Two weeks before Wilkerson and two associates murdered four employees
at a Houston amusement center, Wilkerson had been fired as a pit attendant from the establishment. For a time Wilkerson laughed about the murders, but before he was put to death by the state he expressed deep regret.
This week in 1922
To the prison physician:
“Good-bye, Doc.”
— Luther Boddy, convicted of murder, electric chair, New York.
Executed August 31, 1922
Infamous “cop fighter” Boddy was sought for questioning in connection with the shooting injury of a patrolman. Within two hundred feet of the police station, he fired on and killed two detectives who had apprehended him. After a manhunt involving forty thousand law-enforcement personnel, Boddy was apprehended outside Philadelphia, after disguising himself as a woman and forcing a taxi driver to take him there. When asked why he killed the detectives, he claimed the pair had previously abused him and he thought they were taking him to the station house to beat him. Boddy, twenty-three, grinned at the verdict and in the electric chair.
This week in 1923
“Forgiveness. The most bitter of my friends are forgiven. I am ready to go, and the day of reckoning will come. That cannot be avoided. If only I could make them understand, but I can’t. May the Almighty God protect all that I leave behind and see that even to my enemies no harm shall befall.”
— George Gardner, convicted of murder, firing squad, Utah.
Executed August 31, 1923
When Gardner’s former business partner, Joseph Irvine, and a police officer arrived to retrieve property that Irvine claimed was his, Gardner invited them into his home and then opened fire on them both. His examining psychologist called him “irresponsible and only 60 percent normal” because of a traumatic childhood. Three appeals were undertaken to further determine his psychological state, but he was found to be sane.
