NEWS ABOUT WILLIAM ROBERT JONES
St.Louis Post Dispatch - 11/20/2002 01:29 AM
Jones executed for 1986 murder
POTOSI, Mo. (AP) -- A Kansas City man convicted of what
prosecutors called a cold-blooded, execution-style killing was put to death
early Wednesday.
William R. Jones Jr. died at 12:04 a.m., three minutes after the first
of three lethal doses was administered at the Potosi Correctional Center.
He was the sixth Missouri inmate executed this year and the 59th since the
state's death penalty was reinstated in 1989.
While on the gurney, Jones lifted his head and faced his family and said,
``I love you dad, I love you all.''
His wife Gerti blew him a kiss and said ``I love you so much'' as tears
streamed down her face.
Jones' fate was sealed late Tuesday when both Gov. Bob Holden and the
U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals claiming Jones' original trial attorneys
were inept.
Jones was convicted of first-degree murder in the January 1986 death of
Stanley Albert, whom he'd met at a Kansas City park frequented by gay men.
Jones maintained he shot Albert in self-defense when Albert made unwanted
sexual advances.
In a last statement read aloud after the execution, Jones said in a message
to Albert's children who were present, he said he regretted what had happened,
and their loss but said he did not deserve to die.
``I am sorry for what has hapepned and that you suffered this great loss.
But after 17 years of my incarceration, does this really give you a sense
of closure or simply a sense of vengeance? I pray for you all.''
Albert's daughter, Robin Gazi, 32, Kansas City North, said: ``We do feel
closure. Not vengeance. We feel that 17 years was not long enough. But that
justice was served.''
Gazi and her brother Chris Albert, 30, said their father missed two weddings,
three births, two high school graduations, and grandchildren who did not
know him.
``We were teenagers just getting to know our father when he died,'' Gazi
said.
One of Jones' attorneys, Charlie Rogers, said Jones' version was supported
by his subsequent diagnosis of ego dystonic-homosexuality, a discomfort with
one's homosexual inclinations, along with borderline personality disorder.
Patrick Peters, a former Jackson County prosecutor who tried the case,
described Jones as a ``schmoozer'' who lied to his psychiatrist by initially
claiming he was straight. Peters said that while Jones claimed to be upset
by Albert's sexual advances, Jones was in fact bisexual and living with a
male lover.
Peters said Jones plotted the killing after meeting and dating Albert
and deciding he wanted his Camaro. He said he shot Albert five times with
a .22 caliber gun on Jan. 16, 1986, and left him near the George Owens Nature
Center in Independence. Investigators found the body weeks later.
Evidence included bullets and vehicle license plates found in Jones' home,
and his purchase of a shovel to bury the body, Peters said.
He said Jones used the ``homophobic rage'' alibi in a post-conviction
hearing when his claim of innocence didn't persuade jurors.
``He cold-bloodedly executed this guy,'' Peters said.
The case has drawn attention in Europe, where opposition to the death
penalty is strong, since Jones married an Austrian woman in January 2001.
They met over the Internet a year earlier.
Among those who asked Holden for clemency were the Austrian government
and the 44-member Council of Europe, which said the execution would violate
U.N. human rights resolutions.
The European Parliament, meeting Tuesday in Strasbourg, France, signed
and submitted a petition asking Holden to spare Jones' life, according to
Laurent David of the France-based Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort, part of
the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.
Rogers said Jones' trial attorneys didn't make a plea offer in exchange
for a lighter sentence, or explore Jones' mental status, his abusive, dysfunctional
family, or the brain damage he suffered from an attack by two men five months
prior to the Albert killing.
Thirty-two people were outside the corrections center to protest the
death penalty. One person was there in favor.
------
On the Net:
William Jones' Web site: http://www.william-robert-jones.com/
Missouri Executes Man Defenders Say Brain Damaged
Nov. 20 — POTOSI, Mo. (Reuters) -
A Kansas City man who shot and killed a friend because he wanted the man's
car was executed early on Wednesday despite pleas from supporters that he
suffered from brain damage and an abusive childhood. William Jones Jr., 37,
died at 12:04 a.m. CST, at the Potosi Correctional Center after the injection
of a series of lethal drugs, said prison spokesman John Feujer. Jones was
sentenced to death for the 1986 murder of 49-year-old friend Stanley Albert
during a ride in Albert's newly purchased white Camaro. Investigators said
Jones shot Albert five times, and then hid the body in a Kansas City-area
nature park before driving the Camaro home and showing it off to friends.
Prison officials said Jones' last words included an apology to the family
of his victim, but also a rebuke to his executioners: "I regret what has
happened. I do not deserve death for it. To the family of the victim: does
this really give you a sense of closure or simply a sense of vengeance?"
they reported Jones as saying. Jones' wife, who attended the execution Wednesday
along with a group of defenders seeking to spare his life, made a series
of final appeals in recent days. They argued that brain injuries suffered
during Jones' childhood and in an attack a few months before the murder left
him with anger management problems. Calls to spare Jones came from as far
away as Europe as death penalty opponents there urged the death sentence
against Jones be set aside. Prison officials said 32 capital punishment
opponents protested the execution outside the prison.
Missouri Executes
Man For 1986 Murder
Jones Dies By Lethal Injection
POTOSI, Mo. -- William
Jones Jr. grew up in America's Heartland -- "born in the ranks of the working
middle class, deep in the heart of the United States," he wrote in rambling
prose on his Web site from the Potosi Correctional Center. But his early
life in Kansas City had none of the warmth and humor of a Norman Rockwell
painting. It ended early Wednesday when the state executed him for murdering
a man at a suburban Kansas City park in 1986. Jones, 37, died by lethal
injection just after midnight. He lifted his head from the gurney to mouth
the words "I love you" to his Austrian wife, who won European condemnation
for the execution, and his father, who had once abused him. They looked on
from a witness gallery behind glass, Gerti Jones blowing kisses as tears
streamed down her face, his father looking somber and stunned.
It was far from the childhood that brought Jones to this point -- family
chaos, early exposure to drugs and sex, a father prone to violent episodes
of abuse -- all recorded by Jones in his
diary-like Web site. His appeals exhausted and a clemency petition denied
by Gov. Bob Holden, Jones wrote a final statement late Tuesday, read aloud
after his execution. He said he regretted the murder of Stanley Albert, 49,
the father of two teenage children he'd met at a Kansas City park frequented
by gay men, but that he did not deserve to be executed. In the statement,
Jones asked Robin Gazi of Kansas City and Chris Albert of Liberty, Albert's
children now grown into their 30s, if his execution gave them closure or
a sense of vengeance. Addressing Missouri and European reporters afterward,
Gazi said they felt closure but her brother acknowledged the execution did
represent an "eye for an eye." "Maybe it will cause someone to think twice
before causing the same kind of pain we have endured," he said. "It's not
a good feeling," Albert said. "A man died here tonight. But this man caused
our father's death. He planned it, bragged about it and escaped." Jones'
attorneys had a different explanation for the killing of Albert at an Independence
nature center in January 1986. They said Jones had a confused sexual identity
from a bizarre childhood of early exposure to sex by his own parents, and
erotic strip dancing his sister had led him into. Early in his life, Jones
was exposed to both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Defense attorney
Charlie Rogers cited a neuropsychologist's finding that Jones suffered from
"ego dystonic homosexuality"-confusion about one's sexual identity and uneasiness
about homosexual inclinations. Jones' attorneys said he panicked when Albert
propositioned him. Jones had maintained he shot Albert in self-defense after
Albert made unwanted sexual advances. But prosecutors called it a cold-blooded
execution-style killing over a car. Patrick Peters, a former Jackson County
prosecutor who tried the case, said Jones plotted the killing after meeting
and dating Albert and deciding he wanted his Camaro. He said he shot Albert
five times with a .22-caliber gun and left him near the George Owens Nature
Center in Independence. Investigators found the body weeks later. Evidence
included bullets and vehicle license plates found in Jones' home, and his
purchase of a shovel to bury the body, Peters said. But sexual confusion
wasn't Jones' only problem. Attorneys say the lawyers who represented Jones
at his murder trial were inept. One was an alleged alcoholic who has since
been disbarred. Another now works as a pit boss in a gambling casino. Rogers
said Jones' trial attorneys didn't make a plea offer in exchange for a lighter
sentence, or explore Jones' mental status, his abusive, dysfunctional family,
or the brain damage he suffered from an attack by two men five months prior
to the Albert killing. The case drew attention in Europe, where opposition
to the death penalty is strong, since Jones married Gerti Jones in January
2001. They'd met over the Internet a year earlier. Among those who asked
Holden for clemency were the Austrian government, the European Parliament,
and the 44-member Council of Europe, which says the execution would violate
U.N. human rights resolutions. A German television reporter who traveled
to Potosi for the execution said she was fascinated by U.S. fixation on the
death penalty. "There are none in Europe and so many here," she said.
From: http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/1796576/detail.html
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