Posted on 11/18/2011 10:44:15 AM PST by verum ago
BOISE - Triple murderer Paul Ezra Rhoades was executed this morning despite repeated last-minute appeals, in Idaho’s first execution since 1994 and only its second since 1957.
“The time of death is 9:15,” Mountain time, Idaho Department of Corrections spokesman Jeff Ray announced. “The procedures are complete.”
In his final words, Rhoades took responsibility for one of the murders, but not the other two. A friend of the family of one of the victims, who was in the chamber witnessing the execution, said, “The devil has gone home.”
Unlike the last person executed in Idaho, double murderer Keith Eugene Wells, who dropped all appeals and asked to be put to death, Rhoades pursued every appeal possible, including a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court the night before his execution and another court filing in Idaho that delayed the execution by 55 minutes. None worked.
Rhoades earlier admitted his crimes, which terrorized an eastern Idaho community for three weeks in 1987. His appeals have focused mostly on technicalities and on his abusive childhood and drug addition. He said he had changed in his quarter-century in prison. He also challenged Idaho’s lethal-injection execution method as cruel.
(Excerpt) Read more at spokesman.com ...
Good job..here in Florida this week we finally executed our own triple murderer...of a mom and her two daughters...in 1980...
Next!
They always blame drugs/alcohol/abusive childhood. They never accept/take personal responsibility themselves.
Shoot him AND cut out his tongue!
Lethal injection was good enough for me. He's dead.
Lethal injection was good enough for me. He’s dead.
Yes, he is dead. Now he is witnessing eternity. I hope that at some point he made the right choice of where to spend it. Not just for his sake but I hate to see Christ lose a soul.
For those of you who don’t know what Rhoades did, here are his victims:
Susan Michelbacher, 34, who he kidnapped, raped, then shot 9 times, with the evidence showing that he continued his sexual assault even as she bled to death from the gunshot wounds.
Stacy Baldwin, 21, just married, who he shot in the back when she fought back against his sexual assault and tried to escape after he kidnapped her. He left her to slowly die in the snow while he went off to a cafe to dine with a friend.
Nolan Haddon, 20, a convenience store clerk that Rhoades left for dead after he shot him five times in the store’s walk in cooler, severing his spine.
Kinda ironic for this guy to talk about lethal injection being cruel. Bastard.
He said that he’d changed in jail. I hope that means he found grace. But from the all that I’ve heard, it’s unlikely.
Probably so but we will let God be the judge of that.
Good riddance.
I don’t think I would want to be present though,as some of the victims’ families were.
Thank you for adding perspective to this. The victims should ALWAYS be more important than the killer.
I would have put him on the gurney, given him and sedative - and put him back in his cell. When he wakes up, say that since he killed three people, he will be executed three times - well maybe only two. One never knows for sure about these things.
When he wakes up the second time, you tell him Oops!, one more to go. When he wakes up the third time, tell him his crimes were so heinous that there is no limit. Space the "executions" a day, or a few days, or a week apart. When he wakes up gibbering with insanity, make it for real.
I have been thinking that “Lethal Injection” does not satisfy God’s requirement for dealing with a murderer. Note the following passage:
Genesis 9:6 “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”
Maybe a Guillotine would be a better choice?
I know what you mean. The guy was reprobate. But there is a common misunderstanding about hell. Satan is not yet in hell. When defeated by Jesus Christ, Satan will then be cast into the lake of fire (see Revelation 20:10) "where the beast and false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Satan does not rule in hell as Milton describes. God has prepared the lake of fire for him, his angels and all whose names are not found written in the book of life. (see Revelation 20:15) It is a place of eternal torment.
Anyone who dies in his sins without believing on the Lord Jesus Christ goes straight to hell. (see Luke 16:19-31) All who are trusting in their good works to get them to heaven will be sorely disappointed and will spend eternity there. (see John 3:18, Revelation 20:12,13).
Where will you spend eternity when you die?
He got both life imprisonment and the death penalty!He was sentenced to both and in a sense he got both.
Twenty years on death row waiting to die must be one heck of a long lifetime of tension and boredom.
Sometimes I think the long delays actually add to the justice of the death penalty. The repeated hopes and dashed hopes. The years of sitting in that solitary boring cell with nothing to do but think about what you've done. And then to finally face the ultimate justice. I know it costs the taxpayers more and of course I would vote for limiting the appeal time, but I'm just thinking that there is a certain higher justice in what this creep had to suffer through to the end.
Anyway, good riddance.
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