Arizona executes Edward Harold Schad Jr.

Edward Schad Jr.

PHOENIX -- Arizona's oldest death row inmate was executed Wednesday, nearly 35 years after he was charged with the murder of a Bisbee man.

Edward Harold Schad Jr. was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m.

Schad's final appeals were denied Wednesday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Schad spent the morning of his execution with his pastor to take communion and accept last rites.

Schad, who was raised in the Syracuse, N.Y.-area, told the state's clemency board at a hearing last week that he had accepted his fate.

"I'm 71. I don't have many years left, but I would like to keep what I've got and maybe get a few more, experience some of the green grass outside maybe," he said while asking the board to commute his sentence to life in prison. "If we have to go down that road on Oct. 9 ... I'll get my last rites. I'll go through that. I mean, I have no fear."

The board declined to recommend commutation to Gov. Jan Brewer.

Schad was on parole for a murder in Utah that involved the accidental 1968 strangulation death of a male sex partner when he was accused of killing Lorimer "Leroy" Grove, 74. Grove's body was found south of Prescott on Aug. 9, 1978, with a rope knotted around his neck.

Schad was convicted in 1979 and sentenced to death, then retried and convicted a second time in 1985 after the previous conviction was thrown out. The conviction was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 1989 but since had been tied up in a series of federal court appeals.

The most recent appeals have centered on whether Schad's trial lawyer failed to present evidence of mental illness at his sentencing. His lawyers also tried to show that members of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency were pressured by Brewer's staff to deny clemency in high-profile cases.

Schad was the son of a World War II bomber gunner who was shot down and spent more than three years in a German prison camp. When he returned, the senior Schad suffered from alcoholism and mental illness and regularly abused his wife and his oldest son, according to a psychologist's report filed in court. The report concluded that the younger Schad, too, suffered from mental illness.

A top Yavapai County prosecutor told the clemency board that despite Schad's denial, he was twice convicted by juries that rejected his assertion of innocence.

"He doesn't take any responsibility for what he did," chief deputy Dennis McGrane told the board. "Accidents two times, died of strangulation? I don't think so."

Schad was killed by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence.

Schad becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Arizona, and 35th in the state since capital punishment resumed there in 1992. His death leaves 121 people on the death row in the state, including 2 women..

Schad becomes the 29th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1349th overall since the nation resumed executions on Janaury 17, 1977. 

Source: Associated Press, Rick Halperin, October 9, 2013