Author: Bill Lofquist

Court records indicate that Joseph Jackson had abused his wife for a long time before murdering her. Her efforts to flee that abuse were unsuccessful. Jackson followed her and shot her to death in the home where she worked and then told her employer and friends that his wife was ill and had to leave.

The murder took place at Oak Lodge, Choctaw Nation, on March 9, 1885. The Jacksons were Black.

His trial began on September 7, 1885. He was convicted a week later, and sentenced to death. His suicide attempt soon before his execution failed.

Joseph Jackson was hanged on April 23, 1886.

Henry Feigel lived near Tahlequah, in the Cherokee Nation. On November 26, 1872, he was found dead, having been beaten and shot.

The murder remained unsolved for years, until being reopened in 1883. That investigation led, on March 30, 1884, to the arrest of James Arcene, and on August 4 to the arrest of William Parchmeal; both men were Cherokees.

In a trial complicated by the passage of time, a language barrier (the defendants did not speak English), and the conflicting accounts of witnesses and the defendants, the jury deadlocked after a lengthy trial and deliberations extending from late December 1884 into January 1885. Retried in March 1885, the two men were found guilty on March 28 and sentenced to death.

On June 26, 1885, James Arcene and William Parchmeal were hanged in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

In the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history, Timothy McVeigh conceived and carried out the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people and injured nearly 700 others.

McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran who was disciplined in the military for his ties to the white power movement, was further radicalized as part of the right-wing extremist movement that was growing, particularly in the American west, in the 1990s.

His political activities escalated from writing diatribes to newspapers and politicians, to traveling to Waco, Texas, to show support to the Branch Davidians during the federal siege of their compound in 1993, to advocating for the murder of a federal sharpshooter involved in the siege at Ruby Ridge at gun shows around the country.

In April 1993, McVeigh moved to the Michigan farm of fellow extremist Terry Nichols. There he learned how to build bombs from agricultural chemicals and developed plans to target a federal building. He wrote threatening letters to government personnel and confided to friends that he was nearing some sort of action.

Rather than a series of targeted assassinations, a plan that he determined would be too difficult to carry out, he settled on bombing a federal building.

McVeigh and Nichols then assembled a 5,000 pound bomb in a rented rider truck. On April 19, 1995, McVeigh parked the truck in front of the Murrah Building, lit the fuse, and walked away.

The explosion two minutes later killed 168 people, including 19 children in a daycare center.

McVeigh was pulled over for driving an unlicensed vehicle shortly after the bombing. Investigation found that he was carrying an unlicensed weapon. While in custody, evidence from the crime scene linking him to the Ryder truck was recovered and traced and he was charged accordingly.

After a change of venue to Denver, McVeigh was tried in federal court on June 2, 1997, on eleven charges related to the murders of eight federal agents in the building and several conspiracy charges. He was sentenced to death on June 13.

After his initial appeals were unsuccessful, McVeigh withdrew his remaining appeals.

Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana, on June 11, 2001. His was the first federal execution since 1963.

Even more so than most, the crime, conviction, and execution of Lisa Montgomery raise extremely difficult ethical and legal questions.

Born brain damaged to an alcoholic mother in Melvern, Kansas; raised in an emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive household; forced into prostitution as a child; forced in to two abusive marriages as a teen; and forced into an involuntary tubal ligation at 22; Lisa Montgomery was a deeply disturbed young woman.

Married again but, unbeknownst to her husband, unable to have children, Montgomery hatched a plan to steal a child. Posing as a prospective dog purchaser, she gained entry to the home of Bobby Jo Stinnett on December 16, 2004. She then strangled Stinnett and cut out her unborn fetus. Montgomery then called her husband to tell him she had gone into labor and given birth.

Through computer records documenting exchanges between Stinnett and Montgomery related to dogs, police identified Montgomery as a suspect. She was arrested at her home with the baby on December 17, quickly confessing.

Though Kansas had only reintroduced the death penalty in 1994 and had not conducted an execution since 1965, federal authority for prosecuting Montgomery was asserted through the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932 (the Lindbergh Law).

Despite considerable evidence of Montgomery’s mental impairment, she was convicted on October 22, 2007, and sentenced to death on October 26. Her conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal, despite additional evidence of significant psychological impairment.

Lisa Marie Montgomery was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on January 13, 2021. She was the first woman executed by the federal government since Bonnie Heady was executed, also for a Kansas kidnapping and murder, in 1953.

Dustin Lee Honken began manufacturing methamphetamine in Iowa in 1991. By 1993, his business had grown large enough for him and his associate, Tim Cutkomp, to move to Arizona and develop a network of distributors in Iowa and elsewhere.

With that growth, also came increasing exposure to criminal liability. A dealer who had previously worked for Honken and Cutkomp cooperated in a federal investigation that led to their arrest. Out on bail and facing federal prosecution, Honken and his girlfriend, Angela Jane Johnson, developed and carried out a plan to kill a dealer who had worked for him who was planning to testify against him.

On July 24, 1993, Johnson posed as a saleswoman to gain access to the Mason City, Iowa, home of Greg Nicholson, that former dealer. Once inside, Johnson and Honken kidnapped Nicholson, his girlfriend, Lori Duncan, and her young daughters, Kandi and Amber, drove them into the woods, and shot and buried them.

On November 5, 1993, Honken and Johnson carried out a similar scheme, in which Johnson approached Terry deGeus, a former boyfriend of hers who was also planning to testify against Honken, gained his confidence and lured him into the woods where he was shot and killed.

Without witnesses to testify against them, the charges against Honken and Cutkomp were dropped.

However, the pair were arrested again as part of a new investigation in 1996. Honken again made plans to kill the cooperating witness. This time, however, Cutkomp agreed to testify against Honken. With that information, police arrested Johnson and Honken.

Prosecution of the new case against Honken resulted in a guilty plea and a sentence of 324 months in prison in 1997.

In 2000, prosecutors charged Johnson with five murders. While in jail awaiting trial, she confided in a fellow inmate the details of the killings, including the location of the bodies. That inmate was cooperating with federal authorities.

With that information and the victims’ bodies, federal prosecutors were ready to pursue capital charges against Honken and Johnson. Though Iowa had abolished the death penalty in 1965, federal authority for the prosecution of Honken and Johnson was provided by the Continuing Criminal Enterprise provisions of the “drug kingpin” statute enacted in 1988, that provided federal capital jurisdiction for murders occurring as part of a continuing criminal enterprise, the same statute under which Juan Garza was executed in 2001 and Cory Johnson in 2021.

Honken and Johnson were tried in U.S. District Court. Honken was convicted on October 14, 2004. He was sentenced to death on October 27. In separate trials, Johnson was also convicted and sentenced to death.

Johnson’s death sentence was overturned in 2012 based on judicial questions about her mental state. She was resentenced to life imprisonment.

Honken’s conviction and death sentence were upheld on appeal. Dustin Lee Honken was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on July 17, 2020.

Early in the morning on January 27, 1996, Dustin John Higgs and Victor Gloria waited in the car while Willis Mark Haynes shot and killed Tamika Black, Tanji Jackson, and Mishann Chinn. The murders occurred near the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, on the Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland.

The previous evening, Higgs, Haynes, and Gloria, had spent time with the three female victims in Higgs’ Laurel, Maryland, apartment until an argument led the women to leave. The three men followed, with Higgs driving. They found the women walking and picked them up, apparently cordially, with a plan to drive them home. Higgs then drove to Patuxent, where the women were killed.

The women’s bodies were discovered the next day. Evidence at the scene pointed toward Higgs, who was questioned in March and arrested when drugs were found in his apartment. He was sentenced to seventeen years in federal prison on cocaine distribution charges.

In October 1998, Haynes and Gloria were arrested on separate drug charges. Questioning led to information related to the murders which led to Haynes’ arrest. He and Higgs were charged with the murders of the three women in December 1998.

Higgs was tried in U.S. District Court. Federal authority was asserted due to the location of the murders on federal property. At trial, prosecutors argued that Higgs was the ringleader of the killings, having pressed Haynes into pulling the trigger after Jackson refused his sexual advances.

In his defense, Higgs argued that he was merely the driver and that the killings were initiated by Haynes in retaliation for a drug debt the victims had not paid.

Higgs was convicted and sentenced to death on October 26, 2000. Had Higgs been tried in Maryland, a circumstance that would have arisen had he pulled the car over in a different location, he would not have been subject to the death penalty.

Haynes, who was sentenced to life in prison, subsequently provided an affidavit denying that Higgs forced him into the shootings. Gloria was sentenced to eighty-four months in federal prison.

Dustin John Higgs was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on January 16, 2021.

With only four days remaining in the Trump Administration, he was the last of the thirteen federal death row inmates executed in the previous six months. With the federal death penalty under increasing scrutiny, it is likely that he will be the last person executed under federal authority for some time.

In announcing the scheduled execution of Cory Johnson, the United States Department of Justice noted that “Cory Johnson murdered seven people — Peyton Johnson, Louis Johnson, Bobby Long, Dorothy Armstrong, Anthony Carter, Linwood Chiles, and Curtis Thorne — in furtherance of his drug-trafficking activities. 

Between 1989 and July 1992, Johnson and several co-conspirators, including federal death-row inmates Richard Tipton and James Roane, were partners in a large drug-trafficking conspiracy based in Richmond, Virginia.  In early 1992, Johnson went on a killing spree, shooting and killing each of the seven victims for perceived slights or rivalry in the drug trade.  Johnson shot one victim at close range after ordering him to place his head on a car steering wheel.  Johnson shot and killed another victim at the victim’s home when he failed to pay for crack cocaine — and Johnson also murdered the victim’s sister and a male acquaintance. 

In February 1993, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found Johnson guilty of numerous federal offenses, including seven counts of capital murder, and unanimously recommended seven death sentences, which the court imposed. “

Johnson, a member of a crack cocaine ring that began in New York and New Jersey in the late 1980s before expanding into Richmond, was tried under the statutory authority of the 1988 Continuing Criminal Enterprise provision of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, better known as the “drug kingpin” statute.

Johnson’s conviction and death sentence were upheld on appeal in 2004 (United States v. Johnson, 378 F.3d 382, 2004).

Cory Johnson was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on January 14, 2021, less than a week before the inauguration of a new president would have delayed and probably prevented his execution.

Along with Juan Raul Garza, Johnson is one of only two people executed under the federal drug kingpin statute.

As a child, William Emmitt LeCroy was sexually abused by a babysitter. As an adult, LeCroy committed a series of crimes, including child molestation, statutory rape, and aggravated assault. While in prison, he was sexually assaulted.

While on parole for those crimes, LeCroy made plans to flee the country. On October 7, 2001, he broke in to the home of Joann Lee Tiesler in Cherrylog, Georgia. When she returned home, he raped and killed her and stole her pickup truck.

LeCroy was arrested two days later at a Canadian border checkpoint in northern Minnesota. He was driving Tiesler’s truck.

Federal charges were filed under the statutory authority of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which provided federal capital jurisdiction for murders associated with carjackings. LeCroy’s attorneys unsuccessfully questioned whether that authority was properly applied in a case in which the killing occurred before and separate from the theft of Tiesler’s car, arguing instead that this was a state case.

Tried in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, LeCroy was found guilty in March 2004 and sentenced to death.

On appeal, LeCroy presented psychiatric evidence that he believed Tiesler was the babysitter who had raped him and that he wanted to force her to reverse the spell she had placed on him that led him to commit sexual crimes.

That appeal was rejected.

William Emmitt LeCroy, Jr. was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on September 22, 2020.

Brandon Bernard already had a long history of legal troubles when, as an 18-year old, he, 19-year old Christopher Vialva, and three juvenile accomplies robbed, kidnapped, and killed Todd and Stacie Bagley on July 21, 1999. All five of the assailants were Black; the Bagleys were white.

The Bagleys, who were married and worked as youth pastors, agreed to give the five young men a ride when approached by them at a gas station at Ford Hood, Texas. Vialva then forced the couple into the trunk of the car while the five men drove around using the couple’s ATM card and trying to pawn their valuables.

After stealing what they could, they pulled the car over, shot the Bagleys, and set the car ablaze.

Because the crime occurred on a military base, it was subject to federal jurisdiction. At trial, two of the three juveniles testified against Vialva and Bernard in return for a lighter sentence. They have since been released. The third juvenile remains in prison. Bernard and Vialva were each convicted of two counts of capital murder in June 2000 and sentenced to death.

Appellate efforts focusing on the youth of Bernard and Vialva were unsuccessful. Later efforts that argued against the constitutionality of lethal injection and the hurried efforts of the Trump administration to carry out these executions were also unsuccessful.

Christopher Vialva was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on September 24. 2020. Brandon Bernard met the same fate on December 10, 2020.

On October 12, 1999, Keith Dwayne Nelson abducted ten-year old Pamela Butler as she rollerbladed on the street in front of her Kansas City, Kansas home. Nelson raped Butler before strangling her to death.

Nelson was arrested two days after the murder.

Subsequent investigation revealed that on September 29, 1999, Nelson had confided in a man he had just met that he was planning to rape and kill a woman. Facing other charges, he said that he might as well commit a big crime before he goes to prison. That man, James Robinson, did not report the incident.

On October 1, 1999, a man matching Nelson’s description attacked Michanne Mattson. After a lengthy struggle, she was able to escape and call police.

Continuing his search, on October 12, Nelson spotted Pamela Butler and made her his target. Waiting in his truck, he pulled her in as she skated by. Several witnesses, including Butler’s sister, witnessed the abduction, and provided police a description and license plate number.

That night, a couple working at a church in Kansas City, Missouri, who had seen news reports of the abduction, noticed a suspicious vehicle and called police. The vehicle, which matched the descriptions from that afternoon, was gone by the time police arrived.

The next day, police found the vehicle abandoned. The day after that, they found Nelson hiding under a bridge. As police apprehended him, he confessed and told authorities that Butler’s body was buried near the church where he had been spotted on the night of the murder.

On October 21, 1999, Nelson pleaded not guilty to the charges. After seeking a change of venue that delayed his trial for two years, on October 25, 2001, Nelson entered a guilty plea in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. After a sentencing hearing, Nelson was sentenced to death on November 28.

His conviction was upheld on appeal in 2003.

Keith Dwayne Butler was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on August 28, 2020.