Arizona executes Robert Jones Jr.

Robert Glen Jones Jr.

The Arizona Department of Corrections today executed the man convicted of gunning down six people in a pair of 1996 robberies.

Robert Glen Jones Jr. was given a lethal dose of pentobarbital at 10:35 a.m. and was pronounced dead 17 minutes later in the execution chamber at the state prison in Florence.

It took execution technicians about 30 minutes to find usable veins in Jones, a former drug user. At one point, Jones jokingly said, "Shooting dope. Free up one of my hands and I'll find it for you."

When the warden asked whether Jones had any last words, he said: "Love and respect my friends and family and hope my friends are never here."

He never turned his head to look at the witnesses on the other side of a window. Because of limited space in the execution building's witness room, only 18 of the 22 invited victim releases were inside.

Robert Glen Jones was convicted in 1998 of shooting and killing six people in robberies at the Moon Smoke Shop on May 30, 1996 and the Firefighter’s Union Hall on June 13, 1996.

Jones, 43, and Scott Nordstrom were found guilty of the murders in 1998 and sentenced to die for the crimes.

Arthur “Taco” Bell, 54; Judy Bell, 46; Maribeth Munn, 53; and Carol Lynn Noel, 50, were fatally shot during the union hall robbery. 

Clarence Odell III, 47; and Thomas Hardman, 26, were killed in the Moon Smoke Shop. 

The separate trials of Jones and Nordstrom held the attention of the community because of the gruesome and unprovoked nature of the crimes.

In the Moon Smoke Shop killings, Jones and Nordstrom entered the store and Jones immediately shot Odell in the head.

The pair then held employees at gunpoint, demanding money from two cash registers in the store.

Nordstrom pursued Hardman, who worked at the smoke shop, into a back room, where he forced him to lie facedown on the floor and shot him in the back of the head.

Jones shot and injured another employee, who survived.

The killings at the union hall were considered even more brutal, with the gunmen essentially executing the unarmed victims.

Jones told the Bells and Munn to put their heads on the bar while Nordstrom took Noel into the back room, demanding she open a safe.

As the victims sat with their faces to the bar, Jones shot each in the back of the head with a 9 mm pistol.

When Noel could not open the safe, Nordstrom shot her in the back of the head with a .380-caliber handgun.

The gunmen fled with an estimated $1,300.

Throughout the trial and appeals, Jones maintained his innocence.

Evidence presented at trial, however, proved too great for his defense to overcome.

For example, testimony from acquaintances of Jones, whom he stayed with in the Phoenix area after the killings, said he boasted openly about the crimes.

Letters Jones sent a former girlfriend while he was in Maricopa County Jail after an arrest for another robbery and murder show him directing her to provide an alibi.

In meticulous cursive handwriting, Jones laid out his alibi following with a veiled threat.

“Get that story in your head and stick to it,” he wrote. “You know my friends! I’ll make sure you’re taken care of if you help me.”

The most damning testimony likely came from Nordstrom’s brother, David Nordstrom, who contacted police with evidence Jones had committed the crimes.

David Nordstrom admitted to police that he drove the getaway car in the Moon Smoke Shop killing.

David Nordstrom eventually pleaded guilty to armed robbery and served less than four years in prison. Like Jones, Scott Nordstrom was convicted on six counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. He remains on death row.

Federal public defenders have argued that Jones had ineffective counsel at his trial and a now-deceased Pima County prosecutor withheld evidence. They still question David Nordstrom’s testimony.

Jones turned down a request for an interview in the weeks before the execution.

On Oct. 9, the state executed 71-year-old Edward Schad, who was convicted of killing a Bisbee man in 1978.

Jones becomes the 32nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1352nd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Source: The Associated Press, Rick Halperin, October 23, 2013