Larry “Bill” Elliott, 60-year old former Army intelligence officer from Hanover, Maryland was executed by electric chair yesterday, November 17, 2009, at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, about 60 miles south of Richmond. He was oldest person on Virginia’s death row and consider as the first US inmate to die by electrocution this year. Elliott chose electrocution rather than lethal injection.
Elliott was convicted of the January 2001 shooting deaths of 30-year-old Robert Finch and 25-year-old Dana Thrall. Both were killed inside Thrall’s Woodbridge townhouse on Jan. 2, 2001. It is said that the primary reason why he murdered the couple is because he wanted to end up the custody dispute between his lover, Rebecca Gragg, and Finch. Rebecca is a former stripper that Elliott met on an adult website. She had two children with Finch and the the dispute started after she wasn’t able to return the children to Virginia, which is required in the couple’s visitation agreement, because of a car problem. Elliott became obsessed to Rebecca and said to have spent thousands of dollars for her. On the night before the murder, he promised her that he would do something to put an end to the dispute.
Ballistic tests proves that Finch and Thrall were killed by the same weapon but investigators never found the weapon. Elliott’s DNA was identified in the blood found in the victim’s gate. After eight years of case review, the U.S. Supreme Court finally decided to put Elliott in death row. Supposedly, Elliott should be executed on October 5 but Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine delayed the execution to further review Elliott’s innocence and to impose life sentence instead of death sentence. Last Monday, Governor Kaine did not intervene the court’s decision for the electrocution of Elliott on the next day.
Until Elliott’s last breath, he did no admit that he is responsible for the murder of Finch and Thrall. Here’s one line on his final statement that his attorney, Tom Kelly read:
“In order to obtain my conviction and sentence of death, the Commonwealth assembled and presented a massive amount of false information.”
He stated on his message that he is innocent and he wanted the family of the victims to know that he was deeply sorry that someone killed their loved ones.
The said electrocution was witnessed by witnessed by family members of Elliott’s victims, 4 media, and 12 public viewers.
IMAGE CREDIT: soneblac.com
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