Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Capital Defense Weekly

Criminal Law

: Capital Defense Weekly

South Carolina kills

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

via local media: The man convicted of kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing Melissa McLauchlin in Dorchester County in 1992 has died by lethal injection. Joseph Gardner was pronounced dead at 6:15 pm Friday in the state’s death chamber in Columbia. He did not make a final statement, but did mouth the words “Thank you. I’m OK,” to a relative who witnessed the execution. Police said Gardner and his co-defendants decided to kill a white woman as retribution for 400 years of slavery, but the victim’s family and Gardner’s attorneys say they don’t think the killing had anything to do with racial revenge. Gardner is the third person to be executed in the state this year.

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on December 05, 2008 (boomark / email).