Man who killed fellow inmates executed

JARRATT (AP) A man who strangled his prison cellmate and made good on a vow to continue killing if he wasn’t executed was put to death last Wednesday in Virginia’s electric chair.

Robert Gleason Jr., 42, was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center. He became the first inmate executed in the U.S. this year and the first to choose death by electrocution since 2010. In Virginia and nine other states, death row inmates are allowed to choose between electrocution and lethal injection.

Before being lowered into the chair, Gleason winked into the witness booth. Then he sat calmly while six members of the execution team strapped him in.

“Can they hear me out there?” Gleason asked. He made reference to two songs special to him — a Johnny Cash song “Jackson” and “Take it to the Limit” by the Eagles, as he declared “Put me on the highway, going to Jackson.” In previous interviews with The Associated Press, he said the Eagles song was special because he longed for one last motorcycle ride and “Jackson” because it reminded him of a woman he had loved.

He also alluded to a movie about execution called “The Green Mile” before ending with an Irish expletive and concluding: “God bless.”

Then, after a metal helmet was placed on his head and a clamp on his right calf, his face was covered with a leather strap. He made a thumbs-up with his right hand for several seconds. Then, his body tensed as he was given two 90-second cycles of electric current before being pronounced dead.

Gleason was serving life in prison for the 2007 fatal shooting of a man when he became frustrated with prison officials because they wouldn’t move out his new, mentally disturbed cellmate. Gleason hogtied, beat and strangled 63-year-old Harvey Watson Jr. in May 2009 and remained with the inmate’s body for more than 15 hours before the crime was discovered.

“Someone needs to stop it,” he told The AP after Watson’s death. “The only way to stop me is put me on death row.”

While awaiting sentencing at a highly secure prison for the state’s most dangerous inmates, Gleason strangled 26-year-old Aaron Cooper through wire fencing that separated their individual cages in a recreation yard in July 2010. As officers tried to resuscitate Cooper — video surveillance shows had been choked on and off for nearly an hour — Gleason told them “you’re going to have to pump a lot harder than that.”

Gleason subsequently told AP in phone interviews that he deserved to die for what he did.

“The death part don’t bother me. This has been a long time coming,” he said in one of the many interviews from death row. “It’s called karma.”

Gleason said he only requested death in order to keep a promise to a loved one that he wouldn’t kill again. He said doing so would allow him to teach his children, including two young sons, what could happen if they followed in his footsteps.

“I wasn’t there as a father and I’m hoping that I can do one last good thing,” he said previously. “Hopefully, this is a good thing.”

Gleason had fought last-minute attempts by former attorneys to block the scheduled execution. The lawyers had argued that he was not competent to waive his appeals and that more than a year spent in solitary confinement on death row had exacerbated his condition. Two mental health evaluations done before Gleason was sentenced in 2011 said he was depressed and impulsive but competent to make decisions in his case.

Late Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay.

Use of the electric chair remains rare in Virginia. Since inmates were given the option in 1995, only six of the 85 inmates executed since then have chosen electrocution over lethal injection.

Cooper’s mother, Kim Strickland, witnessed the execution. She has sued the prison system over her son’s death and said she hopes Gleason’s family can have closure.

“May God have mercy on his soul,” Strickland told AP before the execution. “I’ve been praying and will continue to pray that his family can heal from this ordeal.”

Watson’s sister, Barbara McLeod, said in an email she had “mixed feelings” about the execution but “didn’t want him to be able to kill more people.” She, nor anyone else from Watson’s family, witnessed the execution.

Gleason did not visit with family before his execution. Inmate’s families are not allowed to witness executions in Virginia.

He did meet for two hours with his spiritual adviser, Timothy “Bam Bam” Spralding, a church deacon he had known for some time. Gleason had even done some of Spralding’s tattoos.

Spralding said Gleason had expressed remorse and had repented.

“When he came into that room and nodded at me and gave a thumbs-up, I knew he was OK. I knew he was at peace,” Spralding added.

Some protested outside the prison on Wednesday, saying Gleason’s threats to continue killing should not be a reason to justify execution.