Virginia executes Darick Walker

Darick Demorris Walker (left) was executed by injection tonight [May 20, 2010] for the separate killings of 2 Richmond men.

Walker, 37, was pronounced dead at 9:24 p.m., said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections.

At 8:55 p.m., Walker, a tall man wearing sandals and blue prison clothing, was escorted into the death chamber by officers. He was cooperative and appeared calm as he looked around the room and toward the witness viewing area, where one of the witnesses included his lawyer, Danielle Spinelli.

He was strapped into the gurney and a curtain was pulled to block the view while the IV lines were placed into his arms.

The curtains were opened again at 9:15 p.m. Asked if he had a last statement to make, Walker said, "Last words being: I don't think y'all done this right, took y'all too long to hook it up. You can print that. That's it." He was apparently referring to the intravenous lines used to administer the lethal injection.

Outside the Greensville Correctional Center, where the execution took place, 4 death penalty protesters stood in silence, holding candles. They declined to comment.

Walker, 37, was convicted in a 1998 trial of shooting 2 men to death in separate slayings. State law permits the death penalty for someone who commits 2 premeditated murders within 3 years.

Stanley Beale, 36, was killed on the night of Nov. 22, 1996, and Clarence Elwood Threat, 34, early on the morning of June 19, 1997. Each man was shot repeatedly by a gunman who kicked in their apartment doors.

Gov. Bob McDonnell declined to intervene last week.

Reached by telephone this afternoon, Alice Threat-Skipper, Threat's mother, said that she has never gotten over the crime. "It's been a long, hard 12 years," she said.

She said she learned her son had died in an early-morning telephone call from a relative of Threat's girlfriend.

Threat-Skipper said her late son, a graduate of George Wythe High School, was raised in Richmond and was 1 of 6 children. As a child, he enjoyed playing baseball and bowling. As an adult, he had a good job and helped care for 2 children, she said.

Though she does not wish to stop the execution, Threat-Skipper said she does not believe in capital punishment and would have been happy had Walker been sentenced to prison without the possibility of parole so that he could not harm anyone else.

Beale's family could not be reached for comment.

In the Beale slaying, Walker broke into the apartment and accused Beale of coming to his door to look for him. Beale did not know Walker. Threat's girlfriend said Walker once had asked her for a date but said she turned him down because she was committed to Threat.

Walker's lawyers, who had filed for a stay of execution, argued that he is mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. A split panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Walker had not proved that he fit the legal definition for mental retardation.

His lawyers also contended that authorities improperly withheld evidence that could have challenged the credibility of a key witness.

They said Beale's 13-year-old daughter originally told police she heard but did not see the shooter but testified later that she saw Walker shoot her father. Walker's lawyers did not learn of the girl's earlier statement until after the trial.

A social history prepared on Walker's behalf in 2003, when he was 30, said he functioned at the level of an 11-year-old; that he may suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome; and that he has a family history of both mental illness and mental retardation.

Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections, said Walker visited with immediate family members today. He has a spiritual advisor, but it is unclear if he will meet with him or her, said Taylor.

Walker becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Virginia and the 107th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. Only Texas has carried out more executions (457) than Virginia since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2, 1976.

Walker becomes the 12th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1210th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: Richmond Times-Dispatch & Rick Halperin, May 20, 2010