EDDYVILLE, Ky., Nov. 21, 2008
Kentucky Executes First Inmate In 9 Years
Marco Allen Chapman, Who Killed Two Young Children, Resisted Appeals For His Life
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This photograph provided by the Kentucky Department of Corrections shows confessed child-killer Marco Allen Chapman in an undated prison photograph. Chapman was executed by lethal injection Nov. 21, 2008 at about 7:30 p.m. CST at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Ky., for the murders of two children in the northern Kentucky town of Warsaw. (AP Photo/Tenn. Dept. of Corrections)
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A state policeman stands at a checkpoint outside the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Ky., where confessed child-killer Marco Allen Chapman was put to death Nov. 21, 2008. Chapman was sentenced to death in 2004 after pleading guilty to the murders of two children in the northern Kentucky town of Warsaw. He also admitted stabbing another child and sexually assaulting their mother in the 2002 attack. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
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Death penalty opponents Dawn Jenkins, right, and Amanda Bragg protest on the grounds of the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Ky., Friday, Nov. 21, 2008, where confessed child-killer Marco Allen Chapman was put to death. Chapman was the first Kentucky inmate to be put to death in nine years. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
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In the state's first execution in nine years, Marco Allen Chapman was given a lethal injection at the Kentucky State Penitentiary. He was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m. CST.
The 37-year-old pleaded guilty in 2004 to killing 7-year-old Chelbi Sharon and 6-year-old Cody Sharon in their northern Kentucky home in an attack that wounded their mother and another child. Chapman asked to be executed and fought for the right to fire his attorneys to clear the way.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Chapman said to witnesses before his execution. He lifted his head off the gurney, looked into the victim's witness room and spoke.
"I just want you to know that I'm not a monster, but I committed a monstrous, evil act," Chapman said. "This is the man I am, willing to give his life."
His last words were "yes, sir," when the warden asked him if he was ready to proceed.
Carolyn Marksberry, who survived Chapman's attack in 2002 along with her daughter Courtney, said in a statement that the execution may allow her two slain children to "truly rest in peace."
"I believe the tears shed today should be for the victims of this crime, not Marco Chapman," Marksberry said in the statement. "Marco Chapman committed the crimes, accepted responsibility for those crimes and then decided his own fate."
Warden Tom Simpson read a lengthy statement on Chapman's behalf in which the condemned man apologized repeatedly for killing the children and attacking the family. Chapman said he considered the Marksberrys like family.
The execution took about 14 minutes. About two minutes after Simpson ordered it to start, Chapman took several short, rapid breaths, then was still.
On a field in the back of the prison, nearly a dozen death penalty opponents braved near-freezing temperatures for a candlelight vigil.
"This was a state-assisted suicide," said Kaye Gallagher, a coordinator for the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Chapman took a Bible, writing materials and a television to the execution house Thursday, said Lisa Lamb, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Corrections. He requested a last meal of a 32-ounce sirloin steak, 20 butterfly shrimp, salad, iced tea and a banana cream pie.
His remains were to be cremated and turned over to family members, Lamb said.
Kentucky has executed two people since states resumed the practice in 1977 after a four-year court-mandated layoff. Harold McQueen was put to death in the electric chair in 1997 for the shooting of a Richmond store clerk. Eddie Lee Harper waived the remainder of his appeals in 1999 for the killing of his adoptive parents in Louisville in 1982.
Executions in Kentucky, and elsewhere around the country were halted for nearly a year while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a challenge to Kentucky's lethal injection protocol.
The high court in April turned away the challenge, which sought to have the drug cocktail used by Kentucky and nearly three dozen other states declared cruel and unusual punishment.
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Add a Comment See all 35 Comments
- The anti death penalty crowd praying with candles on the execution night at Eddyville numbered less than 14 people. Maybe their convictions were not as bold as the cold temps that hovered at 19 degrees....I noticed no prayer circles mentioning the names Chelbi and Cody...only the name of their killer Marco. The news media was pretty bored with no hoards of protesters to interview.
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- Sad story. Kentucky has at least 20 inmates each year that should have been put down. But instead, its only one in the last 9 years. Very soon, we''ll be finding out that our nation can no longer afford to keep offenders in the Big House. Maybe a plan can be made where they will all be executed and their bodies donated to medical schools.
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- I believe he should have been executed. I also believe that he was an honorable man at the end of his life. I wish he had been honorable ''all'' his life, then there would have been no need for the execution.
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- Having lived close to Eddyville, KY, all my life, I personally believe that there aren''t enough exectuions for inmates on "death row" at KSP.
The old phrase comes to mind, "You do the crime, you do the time!" Or, as in this case, you murder someone in cold blood, then, you pay for it with your life, period.
Far too many times, the person convicted of the crime, seem to be given the benefit of doubt, when, they didn''t give the person they killed or murdered, the benefit of doubt. If a individual has been convicted by his jury of peers and the proof in the case is ironclad, then, these individuals should be allowed no more than 2 appeals, within a 5 year time frame and after those appeals have been exhausted, then, the punishment should be carried through.
Don''t get me wrong, I''ve run across my share of "dirty cops" and crooked attorneys over the years. I''ve heard of shoddy collection processes and downright fraud in murder cases that I have knowledge of. It is normally a small percentage of people who are innocent behind bars and those should be given every opportunity there is to prove their innocence, these are the ones I have a problem with, being executed. - Reply to this comment
- There seems to be a lot of concern over how humane the various methods of execution are.
I believe that out of all the methods, execution by rifle fire is the most humane, the most instantaneous, if it will ease your conscience any.
When Gary Gilmore was executed in Utah in 1976, he was bound to a chair with a hood over his head and a target over his heart.
Six .30-30 bullets, fired about 10 feet away into his chest, ended his life instantly. Witnesses reported he stiffened in the chair for an instant, then slumped. Dead.
The shock of six .30-caliber bullets slamming into the heart made his death instantaneous.
The death penalty only works if it invokes fear. As it is run today, there is almost no fear. Prisoners languish for years on Death Row, filing endless appeals, becoming celebrity causes and even earning college degrees.
Meanwhile, their victims molder and the families of those victims suffer.
Bring back the fear in the Death Penalty. Execute every prisoner thus sentenced within one year, preferably six months.
Then put his poster in every Post Office with EXECUTED in red across his face.
Heck, post it in junior high and high schools, as an example to kids who think they''re so tough. - Reply to this comment
- Yep. Life is sacred until it is born. Then downstreamer could care less what happens to the live baby. He only cares what happens before its born.
Posted by frankfurt200 at 11:41 AM : Nov 22, 2008
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Life IS sacred...So if you take a life in a murder, the only possible payment for that sacred theft is the cost of your own life. An unborn child has not murdered anyone. - Reply to this comment
- Think about it: What image are we sending to the world by embracing such bloodthirsty feelings?
Posted by gea_amicus at 07:50 AM : Nov 22, 2008
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Yeah...think about that...Would surely make them think we are serious...They might even think twice about killing one of our citizens... - Reply to this comment
- To Edward1975: YES! That is the only proven way to stop repeat offenders.
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- So many bleeding hearts. Yes, we are to forgive. No, we are not meant to escape consequences of our actions. Ever. I''d just as soon see the cat-o''-nine tails be brought back. Whipping used to be quite successful in setting would-be criminals on the proper path, instead of slapping them on the wrist and seeing them laugh at us while their appetite for crime escalates.
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- They should have starved him to death.
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- downsteamjim, that is preposterous,
what about the victims?
were they also considered late term abortions? - Reply to this comment
- excoachken, I appreciate your point, but we have way too many people on the Earth already. Besides gobal warming we need to be concerned with overpopulation.
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- These scum should not be allowed to legally decide when they will die--that is suicide not punishment!
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- Need to bring back the electric chair...lethal injection is too good for jerks like this. Am sure the poor children suffered more than he did leaving this world.
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- There are some that commit such heinous crimes, that they lose their right to be among us. Though many have argued that the death penalty is not a deterent, I dis-agree, I will guarentee you, Chapman will never kill again. And thus has stop at least one from committing this offence.
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- Why should the prisoner get to determine more-or-less when he will be pur to death?
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- Let''s not forget the important part of the story: the two poor children and their families, friends. God''s blessings to all of them!
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- This sounds like "assisted suicide" to me. I thought Dr. Kavorkian went to prison for that type of behavior. Oh yeah, it is Kentucky where "life is sacred" if it is a fetus, but once your old enough to be sent to war, it no longer matters!
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Posted by excoachken at 10:30 AM
Yep. Life is sacred until it is born. Then downstreamer could care less what happens to the live baby. He only cares what happens before its born. - Reply to this comment
- Why did it take this long to rid the system of this criminal tax burden waste?
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- not a man but a coward
burn punk, burn. - Reply to this comment
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