Charles Stamper

Murders

On March 25, 1978, in Henrico County, Virginia, 25-year-old Charles Sylvester Stamper robbed and murdered three of his co-workers at his workplace. Stamper, employed as a short-order cook at a Shoney's restaurant at 7101 Staples Mill Road, confronted manager Steven Staples (20), waitress Agnes Hicks (43), and janitor Franklin Cooley (40) at gunpoint. He forced them into the restaurant's freezer and shot all three dead. With accomplice Kearnard Tyrone Bowling (24), Stamper stole about $4,000.

The bodies were discovered around 6:35 am, about 35 minutes after the shootings. Autopsy results showed Staples died from a gunshot wound to the chest, Hicks from two gunshot wounds, and Cooley from gunshot wounds to the head; Hicks and Staples died at the scene, while Cooley died several hours later. Both men evaded arrest for two months until separately captured on May 12, 1978. Ballistic tests matched bullets to a .22 caliber revolver recovered from Stamper's parents' home, where Staples's car keys were also found.

Forensic analysis revealed glass fragments consistent with Stamper's car, and Stamper made several payments with the stolen money. In August 1978, a Henrico County grand jury indicted both for capital murder.

Death penalty trial

Charles Stamper stood trial before a Henrico County jury for triple charges of capital murder in the same year as the murders. On November 17, 1978, the 12-member jury found Stamper guilty of all three counts and unanimously sentenced him to death. Formal sentencing was postponed to February 9, 1979, when Judge E. Ballard Baker sentenced Stamper to death via the electric chair, plus life imprisonment for robbery and three years each for three counts of felony use of firearms.

Baker set an execution date of April 27, 1979, but it was stayed pending mandatory review by the Supreme Court of Virginia. Stamper was the sixth documented convict sentenced to death in Virginia after capital punishment was restored in 1976, and the first to receive multiple death sentences in the Commonwealth. Kearnard Bowling was tried in December 1978, found guilty of first-degree murder, accessory to murder, robbery, and felony use of firearms, and sentenced to 38 years' imprisonment.

Death row and appeals

After sentencing, Stamper was incarcerated on death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center for more than a decade. By 1992, he was the longest-serving death row inmate in Virginia and the only person from the 1970s still under a death sentence in the Commonwealth. In June 1979, his appeal was lodged to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which dismissed it on August 30, 1979. By 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeal.

On February 12, 1982, U.S. District Judge David Dortch Warriner rejected his federal appeal. On May 3, 1988, the Virginia Supreme Court dismissed his habeas corpus petition. On November 5, 1990, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied his appeal, and on August 19, 1991, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected it. In September 1988, Stamper was involved in a fight with two other condemned inmates, Lem Davis Tuggle Jr. and Wayne Kenneth DeLong, and suffered a severe back injury that left him unable to walk.

A neurosurgeon's report cited in his 1992 clemency petition stated he suffered a severe spinal cord injury resulting in partial and irreversible paralysis. He could not stand without leg braces and a walker and had limited use of his arms and legs. For the next four years, he was mobile only via wheelchair, except for brief daily exercise with a walker or leg brace. Tuggle was executed on December 12, 1996; DeLong committed suicide in June 1993.

Execution and aftermath

In September 1992, Stamper was scheduled to be executed on October 28, 1992. His counsel petitioned for clemency from Governor Douglas Wilder and appealed to the courts, arguing he should not be executed due to his paraplegic condition. On October 22, 1992, Wilder issued an indefinite stay of execution, citing a need for more information about Stamper's medical condition and inconclusive evidence, postponing a final decision for at least 30 days.

Wilder had granted clemency twice in ten previous cases. The victims' families opposed the stay, wanting Stamper executed despite his disability, while advocacy groups urged mercy. On January 9, 1993, Wilder refused clemency and forfeited the stay, setting a new execution date of January 19, 1993. Stamper's lawyers appealed to federal courts; U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer rejected the appeal, and the 4th Circuit upheld that ruling.

On the execution date, the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal at 9:25 pm. Less than two hours later, Stamper was put to death in the electric chair at Greensville Correctional Center, with the official time of death at 11:15 pm. In his final statement, he said his execution 'bruised and demeaned humanity' and hoped his death would yield 'abundant fruit' for others. He requested permission to walk to the electric chair in leg braces and with a walker, but the request was denied for unknown reasons.