Alabama executes Jason Oric Williams

Jason Oric Williams

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man was executed Thursday for the deaths of four people in a 1992 shooting spree.

Corrections officials said 42-year-old Jason Oric Williams died at 6:19 p.m. CDT following a lethal injection administered at Holman Prison in Atmore.

Williams became the first person to die in Alabama's death chamber since the state switched to pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental in its execution cocktail. The state switched drugs because of a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental.

Williams was convicted in the Feb. 15, 1992, deaths of Gerald Paravicini and his neighbors. Freddie Barber and Barber's wife, Linda, and their grown son Bryant. Court records show Williams claimed he was high on marijuana, LSD, crack cocaine and alcohol at the time.

Source: AP, May 19, 2011

Jason Oric Williams executed for 1992 murders

ATMORE, Ala. -- Jason Oric Williams smiled at his weeping mother and asked forgiveness for killing four people before he died by lethal injection at 6:19 p.m. today.

Williams, who turned 43 one day earlier, was the first inmate in Alabama to be executed using pentobarbital in the state's three-drug lethal injection. The state was forced to change the drug after a shortage of sodium thiopental across the U.S.

"I hope that the families of the victims forgive me for what I've done," Williams said as he lay strapped to a bed.

Williams killed four people and injured three others during a shooting rampage in south Mobile County in the early morning hours of Feb. 15, 1992.

Gerald Paravicini, 46, Freddie Barber, 50, Linda Barber, 45, and Bryan Barber, 22, were shot and killed in their homes off Padgett Switch Road about 6 a.m.

Ten family members of the victims -- including one man who survived being shot -- witnessed the execution at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, a spokesman said.

In another viewing room, Williams' mother and aunt looked on after a day of visiting him in prison. A minister who works with death row inmates also sat with Williams' family.

He was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m.

Williams made no special request for a final meal from the prison. He ate chicken wings and sandwiches that his family bought from vending machines in a prison visitation area, a corrections department spokesman said.

Drug use challenged

Lundbeck: 'Our drug kills, so what?'

Defense lawyers for Williams challenged the use of pentobarbital, arguing that it hasn't been proven to cease consciousness or otherwise stop the ability to lose pain. His lawyers that that violated the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

Williams, then 23, claimed he was high on crack cocaine and LSD and had been drinking alcohol when he returned to the Paravicini's trailer home, where he had been temporarily living.

After talking to his estranged wife on the phone, Williams grabbed a .22-caliber rifle and began firing at Paravicini. He then beat Paravicini's wife with the gun and shot her 16-year-old son in the face, according to Press-Register archives. The mother and son survived and later testified in court.

Williams then walked to the Barber family's brick house about 200 yards away. He fired at Linda Barber, who was getting ready for work at the U.S. Postal Service, and Freddie Barber, who was drinking coffee in the kitchen, according to archives.

He walked into a bedroom and shot the couple's 22-year-old as he slept. A younger brother, 16-year-old Brad Barber, was shot in the hand before he ran away.

Williams, a ninth-grade dropout, drove away in the family's vehicle and turned up a day later when he called his wife from a pay phone in Mississippi, where he agreed to wait for police and surrender.

After the execution, Williams' family members did not make any statements to news reporters.

During a 1992 sentencing hearing, Williams' mother, Patricia Neal, asked a jury not to recommend the death penalty.

"I just blame me because I was not a mother to my son like I should have been," she said. "Please don't kill my son."

Williams becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Alabama and the 52nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.

Williams becomes the 18th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1252nd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. There are 2 more executions set for next week, in Mississippi and in Arizona; there are 8 executions set nationwide in June.

Source: al.com, Rick Halperin, May 19, 2011


Related article: "Alabama to carry out first execution using Lundbeck drugs", Reprieve, May 19, 2011
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