Human Wreckage True Crime

The 37 Death Row Inmates Granted Clemency 2024

Thomas W

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0:00 | 15:06
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37 death row inmates were granted clemency by President Biden . Their sentences were reduced to life in prison . Some of the crimes that were committed are beyond horrific . Welcome to this episode of Human Wreckage . Thank you for joining me . Let's get into it . Shannon Agofsky 53 .

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Shannon Agofsky , 53 . With his brother , joe , he abducted banker Dan Short from his home in Benton County , arkansas , and took him to Short's bank across the Missouri border where they stole $70,000 . The brothers then killed Short and dumped him in a lake . Agofsky is on death row for stomping fellow prisoner Luther Plant to death inside a federal penitentiary in Texas in 2004 . His brother died in prison in 2013 . Billy Allen , 46 , and Norris Holder , 48 . Holder was awarded $500 a month after losing part of his leg in a train accident , which he always withdrew from the Lindell Bank and Trust Branch in the Forest Park area of St Louis . In March 1997 , he took Alan with him to get the money and they returned four days later armed with two assault rifles , a shotgun and 200 rounds of ammunition . They fired 16 shots in the robbery , killing security guard Richard Heflin . They got the idea for the raid from watching the movie's heat and set it off . He turned up at the Charlotte , north Carolina home of his former girlfriend , robin Williams in April 1996 and threw in a firebomb which failed to kill her . The next month he hijacked a car , killing the driver , leaving his body in a ditch , before driving to Williams' mother's home where he found his ex . She ran , he caught her and dragged her back to the house by her hair and then killed her with two shots .

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Brandon Basham , 42 , and Chadrick Fulks , 46 . The two small-time criminals escaped from the Hopkins County Detention Center in Kentucky in November 2002 , using a makeshift rope from bedware . They then set off on a multi-state trip , stealing cars along the way , eventually ending up in Myrtle Beach , south Carolina , where they followed Alice Donovan's blue BMW into a Walmart parking lot . They kidnapped Donovan , 44 , and after folks raped her , basham took her into the woods where he shot her . Her body has never been found .

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Anthony Battle , 61 . Battle was serving a life sentence in federal prison in Atlanta for the 1987 murder of his wife when he bludgeoned Correctional Officer D'Antonio Washington to death with a hammer because he was tired of being bossed around . He confessed to the December 1994 murder of Washington with an insanity defense but was sentenced to death . Meyer Brown , 53 . Brown went to the post office in Fleming , georgia , in November 2002 to get his family's mail . After going home , he got the idea to return , this time with a knife . He jumped over the counter , tripped and fell into postmistress Sally Gaglia , cutting her . He then decided he had to kill her as she would recognize him , and he stabbed her ten times , leaving her face down on the post office floor . The robbery netted Brown $1,175 in money orders .

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Carlos Caro , 56 . Caro was a drug smuggler bringing narcotics over the border into Texas . He was sentenced to 30 years in 2001 , his third conviction In prison . He became a leader of the violent prison gang , the Texas Syndicate . In December 2003 , he strangled his cellmate , roberto Sandoval , to death in prison in Jonesville , Virginia . He told investigators he had killed Sandoval because he had called him a motherfucker .

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Wesley Koontz , 43 , and Charles Hall , 52 . Both men were in the mental health ward at the federal prison in Springfield , missouri , when they attacked fellow prisoner Victor Castro , binding him and standing on his neck till he suffocated . Koontz , who was serving a life sentence for kidnapping and carjacking , was caught on camera making a throat-slashing sign to another inmate as he left . Castro's cell . Hall was behind bars for making threats against a federal judge and prosecutor . Brandon Council , 38 . Council shot bank tellers Donna Major , 59 , and Katie Skeen , 36 , dead during an armed bank robbery in Conway , south Carolina , in August 2017 . His actions were premeditated , they were deliberate and they were intentional . Prosecutor Everett McMillan said the jury took just 32 minutes to find him guilty .

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Christopher Kramer , 41 , and Ricky Fackrell , 39 . The two Utah men , members of the Soldiers of the Aryan Culture , were in prison in Beaumont , texas when , after months of planning , they stabbed fellow white supremacist Leo Johns to death in June 2014 . Kramer was originally sentenced for bank robbery and was convicted several times for attacking other prisoners . Thackrell was serving time for armed robbery . Len Davis , 59 . Davis was known as Robocop . During his time in the New Orleans Police Department . He was suspended six times in a five-year period .

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Before receiving the Medal of Merit , a woman called Kim Groves filed a complaint saying she had seen him beat up a man who he thought had been involved in the shooting of a cop in October 1994 . Davis was tipped off and ordered her murder . A local drug dealer shot and killed Groves less than a day after she made the complaint . Joseph Ebron , 44 . Ebron , a convicted murderer , killed fellow inmate Keith Barnes less than a day after Barnes had arrived at federal prison in Beaumont , texas , in May 2005 . Barnes had told correctional officers he feared he was in danger as he had given evidence against co-defendants in murder trials in Washington DC , but he was placed in the prison's general population anyway . Ebron held Barnes down while another prisoner stabbed him to death .

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Edward Fields , 56 . The former prison guard hid in camouflage in Oklahoma's Wachita National Forest and shot campers Charles and Shirley Chick with a high-powered scoped rifle in July 2003 . He shot Charles in the face and then , as Shirley ran off , he shot her in the foot before catching her and dispatching her with a bullet to the back of the head . He later returned to the campsite and stole a few items from their van . Marvin Gabrian , 71 . Teenager Rachel Timmerman had accused Gabrian of raping her Two days before he was due to stand trial . In June 1997 , timmerman's body was found in a lake weighed down with cinder blocks . Her 11-month-old daughter , shannon , has never been found . He is also suspected of murdering four other witnesses in the case , but their bodies remain missing Edgar Garcia , 44 , and Mark Snarr , 48 .

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The two were prisoners in the federal lockup in Beaumont , texas . In November 2007 , when they both managed to slip out of their handcuffs . They stabbed prison officer Dwight Bologna 23 times with homemade shanks and then turned on another guard , josh McQueen , demanding his keys . Snarr ripped the keys from McQueen's belt and they went to the cell of Gabriel Roan , who they repeatedly stabbed , killing him . Thomas Hager , 50 . Hager was a major crack cocaine dealer in Washington DC who went into hiding at his girlfriend's apartment after shooting and injuring two rivals in November 1993 . Barbara White , who had had a child with a member of the rival gang , visited Hager's girlfriend and he decided he had to kill her as she might give away his location . He and three others went to White's apartment apartment where they stabbed her more than 80 times .

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Richard Jackson , 54 . College graduate Karen Stiles went missing on Halloween 1994 when she was hiking in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina . Three weeks later her naked body was discovered by a hunter , duct-taped to a tree . Near her were a pornographic magazine and a single rifle casing . She had been shot in the head and suffered 10 stun gun wounds , nine of them to her pubic region . Jackson was caught when officers traced the sale of the duct tape back to a local Kmart .

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Jurij is Katamuvas , 57 , and Yuri Mikul , 58 . The pair , who had moved to the States from the former Soviet Union , went on a four-month spree of kidnappings , beginning in late 2001 . They targeted wealthy Soviet immigrants and received more than $1 million in ransom money from relatives of their five victims . But they killed them anyway and dumped their bodies in New Melones Lake near Yellowstone National Park . Darrell Lawrence , 48 . Lawrence robbed four banks in Central Ohio between January 2004 and January 2005 . During the last , he shot and killed Columbus Police Officer Brian Hurst , who fired back , injuring Lawrence . He was arrested within days and immediately confessed to all four robberies .

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Ronald Mekos , 75 . Meekos , a podiatrist known as the Medicare murderer , killed retired nurse Joyce Brannon who was planning to testify against him in a fraud trial . Meekos , the oldest man on death row , would forge patients' signatures on documents saying he had performed surgeries on them when he learned Brannon's evidence could put him away . In January 2002 , meekos took her to a church basement in Chicago and shot her six times at close range . James Roan , 58 , and Richard Tipton , 53 . They , along with Corey Johnson , who was executed in HDE dying days of the first Trump administration , were part of the Newtown gang in Richmond , virginia . They were convicted in February 1993 of several capital murders arising from their drug trafficking . In early 1992 alone they were responsible for 10 murders . In one case , douglas Talley , an underling who had mishandled a drug deal , was stabbed 84 times .

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Julius Robinson , 47 . Known as Scarface , robinson , was a wholesale drug dealer based in Fort Worth , texas , distributing narcotics to a five-state area . He killed one man who he mistakenly thought was behind a hijacking that cost him $30,000 , and then the brother-in-law of a man who had persuaded him to pay $17,000 for a block of wood covered in sheetrock that he thought were drugs David Runyon , 53 . The sole Asian on death row . Runyon was hired by Katerina Voss and her lover to kill her Navy ensign husband , corey , in April 27 , shortly after he returned from deployment in Korea . Katerina sent Corey to an ATM to get money from an account she had opened for him . He didn't realize she had put just five dollars in it . When he kept getting insufficient funds notices , he hung around giving Runyon time to find him and shoot him to death . Katerina then refused to pay Runyon a single cent . She is serving life in prison .

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Ricardo Sanchez , 40 , and Daniel Troia , 40 . They were part of a drug cartel in Florida that got into a dispute with fellow kingpin Jose Escobedo . They followed Escobedo along the Florida Turnpike in October 2006 in open fire , killing him execution style . Escobedo's wife , jessica , tried to shield their two sons , Louis Julian , 4 , and Louis Damien , 3 , but all three were killed . I have no confidence Mr Troia wouldn't do this again . The judge said , as he sentenced them Thomas Sanders , 66 , as he sentenced them . Thomas Sanders , 66 . Sanders shot and killed his girlfriend , sulin Roberts , in the remote Arizona desert after a labor day outing to the Grand Canyon in 2010 . He then kidnapped Roberts's 12-year-old daughter , lexis , driving her cross-country to Catahoula Parish , louisiana , where he shot the girl four times and cut her throat .

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Cabone Savage , 49 . The aptly named Savage has 12 convictions for murder and was on death row for ordering the October 24 firebombing of a Philadelphia house where a federal witness was living . The resulting blaze killed six people . Savage was a high-level drug dealer delivering tons of cocaine throughout eastern Pennsylvania . He allegedly killed one man after they got involved in a minor fender bender , but he was acquitted because the only witness was also murdered , supposedly by him .

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Rejon Taylor , 39 . Taylor abducted Atlanta Restorateur Guy Luck from his driveway in August 2003 , shoved him in the back of his van and drove him to Chattanooga , tennessee , where he shot him on a remote road . Taylor had broken into Luck's Buckhead home several times . On the last occasion , he found papers showing that Luck had decided to press charges against the then 19-year-old for stealing his credit cards . Jorge Torres , 35 . Torres joined the Marines in order to evade suspicion for the May 2005 murder of two young girls , crystal Tobias , 9 , and Laura Hobbs , 8 , in Utah . He had sexually assaulted them and removed their eyeballs . His death sentence was imposed for a separate murder the strangulation of Navy Petty Officer Amanda Snell in Arlington County , virginia . He also abducted a woman in Northern Virginia , raped her and left her for dead in the snow . Woman in Northern Virginia raped her and left her for dead in the snow .

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Alejandro Umana , 39 . A member of the notorious Ms 13 gang . Umana shot and killed brothers Ruben and Manuel Salinas at Los Cherichitas restaurant in Greensboro , north Carolina , in December 27 after an argument about what music should play on the jukebox . Umana , an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador , is also suspected of at least four murders in Los Angeles . That wraps up this episode . I am sure you are shaking your head as much as I am . If you like what I do , please like and subscribe . Leave a comment about how you feel about these individuals getting reduced sentences . Justice till next time . Take care of yourselves so Thank you you .