Will Ronald A. Gray Be Executed?

Murdered woman’s sister backs execution of former soldier
By Fox News
December 30, 2016

The sister of a woman murdered more than 30 years ago in North Carolina says she and her family fully support the military’s planned execution of the woman’s killer, a former soldier.

Ronald Gray leaves a courtroom at Fort Bragg in 1988. AP

The execution would be the first by the US military in more than a half-century. A Kansas federal judge earlier this month lifted the stay of execution for the former Fort Bragg soldier, Ronald A. Gray, who is being held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Gray was convicted in military and civilian courts of raping several women and killing four, including 18-year-old Tammy Cofer Wilson. He was sentenced to death in a Fort Bragg court-martial in 1988.
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Norfolk Navy Officer Charge With Espionage

Navy officer charged with espionage in military court at Norfolk Naval Station
The Virginian-Pilot
By Brock Vergakis
Published: April 9, 2016

The officer belongs to a unit that provides airborne anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations from planes such as the P-8A Poseidon, P-3C Orion and unmanned MQ-4C Triton.

NORFOLK — A Navy officer assigned to a patrol and reconnaissance group has been charged in military court with two counts of espionage, punishable by the death penalty under certain conditions.

The lieutenant commander is being held at the brig in Chesapeake and appeared at the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing at Norfolk Naval Station on Friday, according to the Navy. The officer’s identity has not been released and charge sheets detailing his alleged crimes were heavily redacted.

The charge sheets say the officer communicated secret information “relating to the national defense to representatives of a foreign government.” The documents do not specify what information was provided, when it was provided or which nation it was provided to.
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Linked from Stars and Stripes

Vietnam Veteran Andrew Brannan Put to Death Last Night

Vietnam veteran Andrew Brannan executed for murder after PTSD defense fails
Washington Post
Dan Lamothe
January 13, 2015

According to military documents released by Brannan’s legal team, he served as a first lieutenant with the Army in Vietnam from June to December of 1970, working as a forward observer and directing artillery fire to assist nearby infantrymen. He twice stepped in as a company commander when other soldiers were lost.
Convicted killer Andrew H. Brannan, who murdered a Georgia sheriff’s deputy 17 years ago, was put to death Tuesday night after attempts for clemency citing his post-traumatic stress disorder developed in combat in Vietnam were denied.

The execution was carried out by lethal injection at 8:33 p.m. at the Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Ga. Brannan’s lawyers had filed numerous appeals in recent days asking for clemency and a stay of execution, saying the post-traumatic stress he developed after serving in combat in the Army had crippled him for life.

Brannan, 66, lost his temper with Laurens County Sheriff Deputy Kyle Dinkheller, on Jan. 12, 1998, after driving 100 mph on a country road and getting pulled over by the officer. Brannan left his vehicle and sarcastically prodded Dinkheller to shoot him, screamed that he was a “goddamn Vietnam combat veteran,” and then retrieved a rifle from his pickup truck, according to a police cruiser dashboard camera video later released.

The two men exchanged shots, with Brannan suffering one gunshot wound to the abdomen and Dinkheller getting hit nine times. The graphic video shows Dinkheller, a Laurens County deputy, screaming in terror and pain as Brannan closes in on him and kills him at point-blank range after reloading. It is now used in police training across the country.
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Evidence withheld by Germany on Petty Officer 2nd Class Dmitry Chepusov Murder

Germans withholding evidence in AFN murder case pending death penalty decision
Stars and Stripes
By Jennifer H. Svan and Marcus Kloeckner
Published: July 23, 2014

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — German authorities will withhold key evidence in the strangulation death of an AFN broadcaster — including the victim’s throat — unless the U.S. military gives assurances it will not seek the death penalty for the airman accused of the murder.

The U.S. military charged Staff Sgt. Sean Oliver in March with murder in the death of Petty Officer 2nd Class Dmitry Chepusov. German police stopped Oliver on Dec. 14 in Kaiserslautern for driving erratically and found Chepusov’s lifeless body in the passenger seat of Oliver’s car.

After conducting an autopsy, German authorities concluded that Chepusov, a 31-year-old sailor assigned to the American Forces Network at Ramstein Air Base, died of “force to the neck.”

Although German authorities initially cooperated with U.S. military investigators, they withheld the throat and other evidence when they turned Chepusov’s body over to U.S. authorities.
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Marine gets death penalty for murder of 2nd Class Petty Officer Amanda Snell

Former Marine sentenced to death in murder of Navy woman
Chicago Tribune
By Katherine Skiba
Published: May 31, 2014

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Saying Jorge Torrez had committed “unconscionable crimes,” a federal judge Friday sentenced him to death for strangling a female sailor near the Pentagon in 2009.

Torrez, a Marine at the time of the murder, also stands accused of killing two young girls in Zion, Ill., on Mother’s Day 2005, and prosecutors in Illinois plan to try him for those crimes.

The death sentence, handed down by federal Judge Liam O’Grady in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, was expected after a federal jury voted unanimously April 24 that Torrez should be put to death for killing Amanda Jean Snell, 20.

Torrez, wearing handcuffs shackled to his waist, said little during Friday’s brief court proceeding, but his lawyers said they would file an appeal in the case.

When Torrez was asked by the judge if he wished to make remarks before the sentencing, he said: “There’s nothing I want to say, your honor.”

The defendant, in forest green jail-issued clothing, was led into the courtroom at 1:32 p.m. EDT.

Seven minutes later, Judge Liam O’Grady said Torrez’s crimes supported the jury’s death penalty recommendation.

“I sentence you to death at this time,” O’Grady stated.
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Fort Hood Prosecutors oust 3 jurors over death penalty

Ft. Hood prosecutors seek ouster of 3 potential jurors
Angela K. Brown
Associated Press
POSTED: Tuesday, July 16, 2013

FORT HOOD, Texas - Prosecutors asked Monday that three Army officers be dismissed as potential jurors in the murder trial of the Fort Hood shooting suspect because of their views on the death penalty. Six potential jurors - four colonels and two lieutenant colonels - were brought in from Army posts nationwide and overseas as questioning continued in the court-martial of Maj. Nidal Hasan.

The Army psychiatrist faces execution or life in prison without parole if convicted in the 2009 rampage that left 13 dead and nearly three dozen wounded on the Texas Army post. Two of those officers indicated they opposed the death penalty, while a third said he strongly favored it. Prosecutors want all three tossed from the jury pool.
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Fort Sill soldier faces death penalty

Soldier faces trial in child’s death
The Associated Press Posted : Friday Feb 8, 2013

OKLAHOMA CITY — Almost two years after a 10-year-old boy starved to death at an Oklahoma Army base, a soldier accused of first-degree murder is set to go on trial in a rare case in which federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday at the federal courthouse in Lawton for the trial of Pvt. Connell C. Williams, 33, who was indicted by a federal grand jury for the May 5, 2011, death of Marcus Holloway, the son of Williams' girlfriend, at Fort Sill in southwestern Oklahoma. He has pleaded not guilty.

A September 2011 indictment accused Williams and the boy's mother, Candice Holloway, 32, of depriving the boy of food over a period of about four months until he starved to death. Holloway pleaded guilty to first-degree murder as part of a plea agreement in which she will serve 30 years in federal prison and testify against Williams.

Since 1927, there have been only 37 federal executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Federal prosecutors filed to seek the death penalty last April because they claim Williams "committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner in that it involved torture and serious physical abuse to the victim." The notice of intent, authorized by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, also cites the vulnerability of the victim and the fact that he was in Williams' care and custody.
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Maj. Nidal Hasan to face death penalty

Hood shooting suspect will face death penalty
By Angela K. Brown - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Jul 6, 2011 11:55:13 EDT
FORT HOOD, Texas — The Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly Fort Hood rampage will be tried in a military court and face the death penalty, the commanding general for the Texas military post announced Wednesday.

Maj. Nidal Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the November 2009 shooting spree at the Texas Army post.

It was not immediately clear when Hasan will be arraigned in a Fort Hood courtroom. He must plead not guilty based on the nature of the case, according to military law.

Hasan's lead attorney, John Galligan, had urged the commanding general not to seek the death penalty, saying such cases were more costly, time-consuming and restrictive. In cases where death is not a punishment option for military jurors, soldiers convicted of capital murder are automatically sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
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Hood shooting suspect will face death penalty

Tuesday execution date for former recruiter in Huntsville Texas

Tuesday execution date for former recruiter
By Michael Graczyk - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Apr 4, 2011 19:44:50 EDT
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A condemned inmate moved closer to being the first person to be executed with Texas’ new drug cocktail after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday refused a petition to convert his sentence to life in prison and an appeals court rejected arguments prison officials improperly made the lethal drug swap.

Cleve Foster, 47, is scheduled to die Tuesday nine for the slaying of a Sudanese woman abducted and shot after she met Foster and another man at a Fort Worth bar nine years ago.

Foster would be the third Texas prisoner executed this year, but the first to die since the state switched from using sodium thiopental to pentobarbital in its lethal three-drug mixture. The switch resulted from a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental. Texas is the nation’s busiest death penalty state.

Foster’s attorneys claim Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials didn’t follow administrative procedures properly when they announced the drug change last month. But a state district judge rejected that argument last week and the 3rd Texas Court of Appeals in Austin upheld the ruling Monday. Lawyers said they would take their challenge Tuesday to the Texas Supreme Court.
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Tuesday execution date for former recruiter

Texas may have executed innocent man Cameron Todd Willingham

Texas may have executed innocent man
By Daniel Tencer

Published: August 26, 2009



A 1991 house fire in Corsicana, Texas, that sent three infant girls to their deaths and their father to the execution chamber was incorrectly ruled an arson, and may have in fact been accidental, says a report from a top fire scientist.

The report from renowned fire expert Craig Beyler, requested by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, casts doubt on death penalty supporters’ insistence that there are sufficient safeguards to prevent the innocent from being put to death. It will also likely raise new calls for the abolition of the death penalty.

The state of Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham by lethal injection on February 17, 2004, for the deaths of his daughters Amber, 2, and twins Karmon and Kameron, aged one. Willingham protested his innocence to the end.

If the Texas Forensic Science Commission accepts Beyler’s findings, “it could lead to the first-ever declaration by an official state body that an inmate was wrongly executed,” reports the Chicago Tribune.
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http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/26/texas-executed-innocent/

Tennessee Gulf War Vet put to death with PTSD

Gulf War veteran who killed his four children CHOOSES to go to the electric chair
Last updated at 20:00pm on 12th September 2007

Murderer: Daryl Holton
A Quadruple killer went to the electric chair yesterday after choosing to be electrocuted rather than receive a lethal injection.


Daryl Holton, 45, a Gulf war veteran who murdered his three sons and their half-sister with an assault rifle after promising them a Christmas surprise, was the first inmate to be electrocuted in the state of Tennessee since 1960.

When prison warden Ricky Bell asked Holton if he had any last words, he replied only 'Yeah, I do,' but said nothing further.

Officials at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution then placed a wet sponge and metal plate on Holton's head.

Holton kept his eyes closed.

As a towel was used to wipe away water from the sponge, he said: "Don't worry about it."

A black shroud was placed over his head.

Then a 20-second shock was administered. Holton's back straightened and his hips moved up out of the chair before he slumped back.

After a 15 second pause, Holton was given a second shock that lasted 15 seconds.

He was pronounced dead moments later.

Tennessee law states the voltage used must be at least 1,750 volts.

Electrocution was first introaduced in New York in 1888 as a more humane method of execution than hanging, but there have been horrific instances of inmates catching on fire, multiple jolts being needed to kill, and bones being broken by convulsing limbs.

Holton had methodically killed his children and their half-sister in Shelbyville, Tennessee, garage in 1997, following a lengthy custody battle with his ex-wife.

Lined up on the promise of a Christmas surprise, the youngsters - Steven, 12, Brent, ten, Eric, six, and their four-year-old half-sister Kayla - were shot in the back.

Holton told police he killed the children because his ex-wife had not let him see them for months.

Holton said he was suffering from severe depression at the time. His lawyers maintain he had a long history of mental illness and may have suffered post traumatic stress disorder following the 1991 Gulf War.
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When I was researching the suicide deaths of our veterans, I came across more stories like Holton's and their families. The percentages of murder-suicides is low. There were other crimes committed but most of the ones I found had suspicions of links to inoculations and drugs given before deployments. The majority of the PTSD findings I came across were suicide.

Too many of these men and women have the mind-set that people with PTSD are defects, useless or even deserve what they're going through. Others around them don't want PTSD talked about because they feel it will make them look bad.

Although I am grateful the media began to pay attention to PTSD, they still have fallen short of removing the stupidity from the minds of those in the military and eliminating the stigma attached to having it. What will it take for everyone to finally and fully understand that PTSD is a wound. It is caused by trauma. It has nothing to do with being "bad" or "evil" or their courage or their patriotism but has everything to do with getting help to heal.

The dangerous ones are rare with PTSD. Most are just trying to spend one night without having a nightmare, without having a flashback, without forgetting what happened ten minutes ago because of short term memory loss.

There are different degrees of PTSD and it is about time for us to understand this. It is not a one size fits all diagnosis. Some have mild PTSD that if they get treated early on, it does not develop into full blown life altering PTSD for the rest of their lives. Others develop it stronger from trauma upon trauma piling up until they can no longer see themselves when they look in the mirror. Until the sickening, judgmental response of those around these wounded warriors develops into positive support, more will end up suffering needlessly. More families will fall apart and more people will blame themselves instead of the trauma.


Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington