Virginia inmate executed for killing two men in separate shootings

JARRATT, VA. -- A Virginia inmate was executed Thursday night for killing two men in front of their families in separate shootings.

Darick Demorris Walker, 37, died by injection at 9:24 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center for the shooting deaths of Stanley Beale in 1996 and Clarence Elwood Threat in Richmond in 1997. Virginia law allows the death penalty for anyone who commits two premeditated murders within three years.

When asked for his last words, Walker referred to the extra time it took to insert one of the two intravenous lines in his arms: "Last words being: I don't think y'all done this right. Took y'all too long to hook it up. You can print that. That's it."

Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor acknowledged that prison officials had difficulty getting one of the IVs started but said there were no other problems.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up Walker's two appeals. Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) had refused to block the execution days earlier.

Walker's attorneys said that he was mentally unfit for capital punishment and that prosecutors withheld evidence casting doubt on eyewitness testimony at his trial.

Witnesses testified that Walker kicked in the door to the apartment where Beale lived with his three children and their mother on Nov. 22, 1996, pointed a gun at him and asked why Beale kept coming to his house looking for him. Beale told Walker he didn't know him, and Walker shot him three times.

In the other shooting, on June 18, 1997, Threat and his girlfriend, Andrea Noble, were sleeping in their bedroom when Walker kicked open the door and shot Threat seven times as Noble's children screamed and cried in their bedrooms.

Beale's 13-year-old daughter, Bianca Taylor, testified that she knew Walker from their neighborhood as "Todd." She said she saw him burst in and shoot her father before her mother ushered her into a bathroom.

Walker was the 107th inmate put to death in Virginia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Only Texas has executed more prisoners.