Execution set for Arkansas man in 1994 kidnap-rape-murder

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - The government has set an April 16 federal execution for an Arkansas man convicted in the 1994 kidnapping and death of a 16-year-old girl who was raped, beaten and buried alive after her abduction was recorded in a desperate 911 call.

Bruce Carneil Webster, 33, of Pine Bluff, Ark., is scheduled to die by injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute at 7 a.m. that day, the Bureau of Prisons said in a news release.

Webster and another man on the federal death row here, Orlando C. Hall of El Dorado, Ark., were among five men whom prosecutors said kidnapped Lisa Rene from her Arlington, Texas, home to get revenge on her two brothers for a botched $5,000 marijuana deal. Over two days, she was taken to Arkansas, gang-raped, bludgeoned with a shovel and buried alive.

Rene, a native of the Virgin Islands who was living with relatives at the time of the abduction, was dragged from the family's apartment as she pleaded with a 911 operator. "They're trying to break down my door! Hurry up!" she said, according to a tape of the call.

A muffled scream is heard seconds later, with a man saying, "Who you on the phone with?" before the line goes dead.

Rene's body was found in a shallow grave at a nature reserve in Pine Bluff on Oct. 2, 1994.

Webster was sentenced to death by U.S. District Court Judge Terry R. Means of the Northern District of Texas on Sept. 24, 1996, on a jury's recommendation.

Webster would become the first prisoner put to death by the federal government since the March 18, 2003, execution of Louis Jones Jr., a Gulf War veteran who had raped and killed a female soldier, and the fourth since it resumed executions in 2001 after a 38-year suspension. The others were Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and drug kingpin Juan Garza.

http://www.romingerlegal.com/fifthcircuit/opinions/96-11224.CR0.wpd.html

The facts are the same as in the case of Webster's
co-conspirator, Orlando Hall. See United States v. Hall, 152 F.3d
381 (5th Cir. 1998). Webster, Hall, and Marvin Holloway ran a

marihuana trafficking enterprise in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. They
purchased marihuana in varying amounts in the Dallas/Fort Worth
area with the assistance of Steven Beckley, who lived in Irving,
Texas. The marihuana was transported, typically by Beckley, to
Arkansas and stored in Holloway's house.
On September 21, 1994, Holloway drove Hall from Pine Bluff to
the airport in Little Rock, and Hall took a flight to Dallas to
engage in a drug transaction. Beckley and Hall's brother,
Demetrius Hall (D. Hall), picked up Hall at the airport. Later
that day, Hall and Beckley met two local drug dealers, Stanfield
Vitalis and Neil Rene (N. Rene), at a car wash and gave them $4700
for the purchase of marihuana. Later that day, Beckley and D. Hall
returned to the car wash to pick up the marihuana, but Vitalis and
N. Rene never appeared.
When Hall got in touch with Vitalis and N. Rene by telephone,
they claimed they had been robbed of the $4700. Using the
telephone number that Beckley had dialed to contact Vitalis and
N. Rene, Hall procured an address at the Polo Run Apartments in
Arlington, Texas, from a friend who worked for the telephone
company. Hall, D. Hall, and Beckley began conducting surveillance
at the address and saw Vitalis and N. Rene exit an apartment and
approach the same car they had driven to the car wash, which they
claimed was stolen from them along with the $4700. Hall therefore
deduced that Vitalis and N. Rene had lied to him about having been
robbed.
2

On September 24, Hall contacted Holloway and had him drive
Webster to the Little Rock airport. From there, Webster flew to
Dallas. That evening, Hall, D. Hall, Beckley, and Webster returned
to the Polo Run Apartments in a Cadillac owned by Cassandra Ross,
Hall's sister. Hall and Webster were armed with handguns, D. Hall
carried a small souvenir baseball bat, and Beckley had duct tape
and a jug of gasoline. They approached the apartment from which
they had previously seen Vitalis and N. Rene leave.
Webster and D. Hall went to the front door and knocked. The
occupant, Lisa Rene, N. Rene's sixteen-year-old sister, refused to
let them in and called her sister and the police emergency phone
number. After Webster unsuccessfully attempted to kick in the
door, he and D. Hall looked through a sliding glass door on the
patio and saw that Lisa Rene was on the telephone. D. Hall
shattered the door with the bat; Webster entered the apartment,
tackled Lisa Rene, and dragged her to the car.
Hall and Beckley had returned to the car when they heard the
sound of breaking glass. Webster forced Lisa Rene onto the
floorboard of the car, and the group drove to Ross's apartment in
Irving. Once there, they exited the Cadillac and forced Lisa Rene
into the back seat of Beckley's car; Hall climbed into the back
seat as well. With Beckley at the wheel and Webster in the front
passenger seat, they drove around looking for a secluded spot.
During the drive, Hall raped Lisa Rene and forced her to perform
fellatio on him.
3

Unable to find a spot to their liking, they eventually
returned to Ross's apartment. From there, Beckley, D. Hall, and
Webster drove Lisa Rene to Pine Bluff. Hall remained in Irving and
flew back to Arkansas the next day. En route to Pine Bluff,
Webster and D. Hall took turns raping Lisa Rene. Once Beckley,
D. Hall and Webster reached Pine Bluff, they obtained money from
Holloway to get a motel room. In the room, they tied Lisa Rene to
a chair and raped her repeatedly.
Hall and Holloway arrived at the motel room on the morning of
September 25. They went into the bathroom with Lisa Rene for
approximately fifteen to twenty minutes. When Hall and Holloway
came out of the bathroom, Hall told Beckley, "She know too much."
Hall, Holloway, and Webster then left the motel.
Later that afternoon, Webster and Hall went to Byrd Lake Park
and dug a grave. That same evening, Webster, Hall, and Beckley
took Lisa Rene to the park but could not find the grave site in the
dark, so they returned to the motel room. In the early morning of
September 26, Beckley and D. Hall moved Lisa Rene to another motel
because they believed the security guard at the first motel was
growing suspicious.
The same morning, Webster, Hall, and Beckley again drove Lisa
Rene to Byrd Lake Park. They covered her eyes with a mask. Hall
and Webster led the way to the grave site, with Beckley guiding
Lisa Rene by the shoulders. At the grave site, Hall turned Lisa
Rene's back toward the grave, placed a sheet over her head, and hit
4

her in the head with a shovel. Lisa Rene screamed and started
running. Beckley grabbed her, and they both fell down. Beckley
hit her in the head twice with the shovel and handed it to Hall.
Webster and Hall began taking turns hitting her with the shovel.
Webster then gagged her and dragged her into the grave. He
stripped her, covered her with gasoline, and shoveled dirt back
into the grave. When buried, Lisa Rene, although unconscious,
likely was still breathing. Hall, Beckley, and Webster then
returned to the motel and picked up D. Hall.
Based on information from the victim's brothers, D. Hall was
arrested; Hall and Beckley subsequently surrendered to the police.
On September 29, just after turning himself in, Beckley gave a
confession to a police detective and an FBI agent in which he
admitted to the kidnaping of Lisa Rene and implicated himself,
Hall, and an individual known as "B-Love." Beckley stated that he
had last seen Lisa Rene at the Pine Bluff Motel with B-Love. A
security guard at the motel informed the agents and officers that
Webster went by the name B-Love, and provided a description of
Webster and his vehicle. When Webster pulled into the motel
parking lot during the early morning of September 30, he was
detained and subsequently arrested.

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