Condemned killer chooses electric chair
Paul Warner Powell
Published: July 1, 2009
Updated: July 1, 2009
Condemned killer Paul Warner Powell wants to be executed in Virginia’s electric chair.
He is scheduled to die July 14 for the 1999 rape and murder of a 16-year-old Yorkshire girl.
Since 1995, death row inmates in Virginia have had a choice of how they want to be executed by lethal injection or electrocution. Powell is the first inmate since 2006 to pick the electric chair.
The 29-year-old is sentenced to death for stabbing 16-year-old Stacie Reed and her 14-year-old sister, Kristie, in their Yorkshire home on Jan. 29, 1999.
Kristie’s throat was slashed, but she survived. Her sister, who suffered a stab wound to the heart, did not. Their stepfather came home from work to find Stacie dead in her bedroom and Kristie bleeding in the basement.
Despite life-threatening injuries, Kristie was able to tell police officers and paramedics that Powell was responsible. Police arrested Powell the next day at a friend’s house.
Powell was originally convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2000, but the Supreme Court of Virginia tossed out the conviction, ruling that the attacks on the sisters were separate crimes and did not rise to capital murder.
After that ruling, Powell sent a letter laced with profanity to Prince William Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert, giving chilling details of Stacie’s death. In it, he wrote about attempting to rape the struggling girl before stabbing her to death. The letter gave prosecutors the evidence they needed to bring a new capital murder charge against him.
He was convicted in 2003, and the appeals began soon after. Through the years, state appeals courts and the Virginia Supreme Court have upheld his conviction.
Powell’s lawyers have filed a clemency petition with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and could still ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal. But last-minute clemency is unlikely.
Since the 1995 introduction of lethal injection, 75 killers have been executed by injection and four have opted for electrocution.
In all, 339 inmates have been executed in Virginia since the first electrocution in 1908.
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down capital punishment, but it was reinstated in 1976. Since then, Virginia has executed 103 inmates.
Today, there are 15 inmates on death row.
Communities editor Kari Pugh can be reached at 703-878-8056.
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Reader Reactions
It takes more than premeditation to get a death penalty conviction.
Better check your facts out. You are missing some key bits of information.
Posted by ( blue_doggette ) on July 02, 2009 at 11:29 am
“Anastacio Sanchez Miranda might not have met the criteria for the death penalty. It isn’t just an automatic.“
He met the pre-meditated requirement for all three victims.
I am not in favor of the death penalty. It really never fixes anything. No one will learn from his mistake, he will no longer suffer in jail and a year from now the only people who will remember his name or think about this case is the family and friends of the victim. That being said however, this would be the one case that makes me question my beliefs, not change them, just question them.
Scorps, rest easy also knowing I could volunteer to pull the switch on this nasty toad.
I don’t have any problem with the death penalty. I am also pro choice.
No inconsistencies here.
The death penalty cannot be applied just because of murder. Certain criteria must be met. Just a statement of fact. No opinion.
Miranda and Powell both need to fry. LOL Chris Cummings
That has been my question to Pro-Lifers/Pro-Capital Punishment believers for years. I don’t get it. Some say it’s because “babies” pre-birth are innocent and murders/rapists (which there isn’t even a capital punishment attached to in most cases) make a choice to commit these crimes. That’s an entirely different conversation! A bit Hypocritical if you ask me.
“blue, if I detect right, you have a conflict with the death penalty.“
scorps, rest easy tonight in knowing I don’t have a conflict with the death penalty.
I’d be happy to pull the switch on this one.
My question to you would be “How can you be Pro-Life and SUPPORT the death penalty?“
blue, if I detect right, you have a conflict with the death penalty.
Even with a case like Powell who rapes and kills one sister, then pours himself a drink and sitts and waits for the other sister to arrive so he can finish what he had palnned?
How do you reconcile the disapproval of death penalty for the scum of the society with the approval of the murder of innocent unborn babies?
Anastacio Sanchez Miranda might not have met the criteria for the death penalty. It isn’t just an automatic.
There is also more red tape to executing citizens of another country—not impossible but not the same as one’s own criminal citizens.
Mr. Ebert most certainly has other reasons not stated in MSM.
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