Man who kidnapped, raped, buried Texas teen alive is executed
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A man convicted of kidnapping and raping a 16-year-old Texas girl before dousing her with gasoline and burying her alive was executed Thursday, the eighth federal inmate put to death this year after a nearly two-decade hiatus.
Orlando Hall, 49, was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m. ET after being given a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. In his final words, Hall invited others to Islam, thanked those who supported him and sought to reassure them, saying, "I'm OK." After a statement was read recounting his crimes, Hall took one last opportunity to look to his supporters and say: "Take care of yourselves. Tell my kids I love them."
The late-night execution came after the Supreme Court denied last-minute legal challenges from Hall's attorneys, who had argued that racial bias played a role in his sentencing and had also raised concerns about the execution protocol and other constitutional issues.
As the drug was administered, Hall lifted his head, appeared to wince briefly and twitched his feet. He appeared to mumble to himself and twice he opened his mouth wide, as if he was yawning. Each time that was followed by short, seemingly labored breaths. He then stopped breathing and soon after, an official with a stethoscope came into the execution chamber to check for a heartbeat before Hall was officially declared dead.
Before the Trump administration resumed federal executions this year, only three federal inmates had been executed in the previous 56 years. Two other executions are scheduled for later this year — though a judge on Thursday said one of them could not be carried out before the end of the year — and president-elect Joe Biden has not said if federal executions will continue when he takes office.
Hall was among five men convicted in the abduction and death of Lisa Rene in 1994.
Federal court documents said Hall was a marijuana trafficker in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who would sometimes buy his drugs in the Dallas area. He arrived in Dallas on Sept. 24, 1994, met two men at a car wash and gave them $4,700 with the expectation they would return later with the marijuana. The two men were Rene's brothers.
Instead, the men claimed their car and the money were stolen in a robbery. Hall and accomplices figured they were lying and were able to track down the address of the brothers' apartment in Arlington, Texas.
When Hall and three other men arrived at the apartment, the brothers weren't there. Lisa Rene was home, alone.
"She was studying for a test and had her textbooks on the couch when these guys came knocking on the front door," retired Arlington detective John Stanton Sr. said.
In a statement released by prison officials, her older sister, Pearl Rene, said the execution "marks the end of a very long and painful chapter in our lives."
"My family and I are very relieved that this is over. We have been dealing with this for 26 years and now we're having to relive the tragic nightmare that our beloved Lisa went through," she said. "Ending this painful process will be a major goal for our family. This is only the end of the legal aftermath. The execution of Orlando Hall will never stop the suffering we continue to endure."
Court records offer a chilling account of the terror her sister faced.
"They're trying to break down my door! Hurry up!" the victim told a 911 dispatcher. A muffled scream was heard seconds later, with a man saying, "Who you on the phone with?" The line then went dead.
Stanton said the men smashed a sliding glass door to get inside and immediately took off with Rene. Police arrived within minutes but the men, and Rene, were already gone, said Stanton, still wincing at the near-miss of thwarting the crime at its onset.
"It was one that I won't ever forget," Stanton said. "This one was particularly heinous."
The men drove to a motel in Pine Bluff. Rene was repeatedly sexually assaulted during the drive and at the motel over the next two days.
On Sept. 26, Hall and two other men drove Rene to Byrd Lake Natural Area in Pine Bluff, her eyes covered by a mask. They led her to a gravesite they had dug a day earlier. Hall placed a sheet over Rene's head then hit her in the head with a shovel. When she ran another man and Hall took turns hitting her with the shovel before she was gagged and dragged into the grave, where she was doused in gasoline before dirt was shoveled over her.
A coroner determined that Rene was still alive when she was buried and died of asphyxiation in the grave, where she was found eight days later.
Crossing the Texas-Arkansas line made the case a federal crime. One of Hall's accomplices, Bruce Webster, also was sentenced to death but the sentence was vacated last year because he is intellectually disabled. Three other men, including Hall's brother, received lesser sentences in exchange for their cooperation at trial.
Hall's lawyers contend that jurors who recommend the death penalty weren't told of the severe trauma he faced as a child or that he once saved a 3-year-old nephew from drowning by leaping into a motel pool from a balcony.
Donna Keogh, 67, first met Hall 16 years ago when she and other volunteers from her Catholic church set up a program to provide Christmas presents for children of inmates at the Terre Haute prison. They corresponded by email until days before his death.
Keogh said Hall had two sons, ages 28 and 27, and 13 grandchildren.
Hall turned his life around in prison, educating himself and becoming an avid reader, Keogh said. She couldn't understand the value in executing him.
"My faith tells me that all life is precious and that includes the lives on death row," Keogh said. "I just don't see any purpose."
Hall's lawyer, Marcy Widder, released a statement after the execution saying: "Tonight, the federal government took the life of a man who spent the last quarter century repenting for his role in the death of Lisa Rene and striving every day to become a better father, brother, son, and human in honor of her memory. The world was not made a better place because of his death; rather, we are all diminished by our government's ruthless desire to kill, and its devaluing of hope and redemption."
Five of the first six federal executions this year involved white men; the other was Navajo. Christopher Vialva, who was Black, was put to death Sept. 24 for killing an Iowa couple who were visiting Texas in 1999.
Critics have argued that executing white inmates first was a political calculation in a nation embroiled in racial bias concerns involving the criminal justice system.
A September report by the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center said Black people remain overrepresented on death rows, including federal death row. The organization's database shows that 25 of 55 federal death row inmates (46%) are Black, while Blacks make up only about 13% of the U.S. population
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I'm not a big fan of capital punishment, but in cases like this, I can go with an eye for an eye.
I, too, am against capital punishment, but what that animal really deserved is for the family of his victim to douse him in gasoline, set him on fire and bury him alive, and not giving him 26 years of 3 meals a day and books to read.
If you are going to kill 1 person for a crime that multiple people committed, where is the justice in that?
It would seem that at least one other person was involved directly in her death,and two other people were involved in the terrible events preceding her death, but they get a pass because they cooperate?
I do not agree with the death penalty, and in this case it seems that the penalty was applied differentially. It is quite apparent to me that vengeance is the motivator for this death, not justice.
I don't think they got a pass they just didn't get the death penalty. They make deals for testimony it's just the way it works. I'm against the death penalty not because I don't think some people deserve it but because I don't trust our government. The biggest proof of why we shouldn't trust the government is when a guy who's been prisoner for decades is proven innocent by DNA or something else but the cops and prosecutors still insist he's guilty in some way even as the courts release him. The cops and prosecutors value their own opinions or gut feelings more than actual evidence and would rather imprison an innocent man than admit they were wrong.
Agree, there have been too many that have gotten the death penalty and later cleared by dna evidence.
I am for the death penalty when one is caught in the act committing a crime that warrants the death penalty. And in that case, skip the trial, skip the appeals, go straight to sentencing and carry out the penalty within a few weeks.
Another slime all gets what he deserves. It it just too bad it took so long and wasn't more painful than it was. I have no sympathy for him and wish to sho him no compassion.
Good
I'm not a fan of capital punishment, but it is hard to feel bad for this guy.
I thought for sure there was a pardon coming /s
And so be it. You take the life of a fellow human being in such a shocking way you forfeit your right to walk this earth. What a heinous and despicable thing to do and burn and bury her alive..how she must have suffered as her life ebbed away...We use to have the death penalty here but unfortunately it no longer exists..but there are times I truly wish we still did ...so dreadful for the poor lasses family to know how she died... their worst nightmare...and they have to live their lives without their beloved daughter...