XPost: sac.politics, alt.politics.homosexuality, soc.retirement   
   XPost: rec.arts.tv   
   From: fudge-packers@liberalism.org   
      
   Arizona on Wednesday executed the oldest person on its death   
   row, nearly 35 years after he was charged with murdering a   
   Bisbee man during a robbery.   
      
   The execution of 71-year-old Edward Harold Schad Jr. came about   
   two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeals.   
      
   At about 10 a.m., the warden at the state prison in Florence   
   read Schad's execution warrant and asked him if he had anything   
   to say.   
      
   Schad responded: "Well, after 34 years, I'm free to fly away   
   home. Thank you, warden. Those are my last words."   
      
   He then lay quietly and looked at the ceiling as he was given a   
   lethal dose of pentobarbital through IV needles in both arms. He   
   was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m.   
      
   Schad's pastor, the Rev. Ronald Koplitz, said the statement   
   likely was a reference to "I'll Fly Away," a Gospel song he gave   
   Schad a couple of weeks ago.   
      
   Koplitz met Schad when the Lutheran minister first arrived at   
   the Florence prison in 1981 and served as the prison Chaplin.   
   Koplitz said he kept in touch with him after that, and gave him   
   last rites just before the execution and served as a witness.   
   "He was not your typical inmate," Koplitz said.   
      
   "He was a good guy. Whether he did the murder or not, I don't   
   know," Koplitz said afterward. "He always told me he didn't,   
   like he told everybody else."   
      
   Schad was sentenced to death for killing Lorimer "Leroy" Grove,   
   whose body was found Aug. 9, 1978, in underbrush off the   
   shoulder of U.S. 89 south of Prescott. A sash-like cord used to   
   strangle Grove was still knotted around his neck.   
      
   Schad was arrested several weeks later in Utah while driving   
   Grove's Cadillac. Authorities say he had driven the car across   
   the country, used Grove's credit cards and forged a check from   
   Grove's bank account.   
      
   At the time, Schad was on parole for second-degree murder in the   
   1968 accidental strangulation death of a male sex partner in   
   Utah.   
      
   Schad was convicted in Grove's death in 1979 and again in 1985   
   after the previous conviction was thrown out. The conviction was   
   upheld by the state Supreme Court in 1989 but later became tied   
   up in a series of federal court appeals.   
      
   The U.S. Supreme Court in June lifted a stay put in place by an   
   appeals court, ordering the court to issue the execution   
   authorization.   
      
   Although Schad acknowledged driving Grove's stolen car and using   
   his credit cards, he always maintained he didn't kill Grove.   
   Regardless, he told the state's clemency board at a hearing last   
   week that he had accepted his fate.   
      
   A top Yavapai County prosecutor told the Arizona Board of   
   Executive Clemency that despite Schad's denial, he was twice   
   convicted by juries that rejected his assertion of innocence.   
      
   "He doesn't take any responsibility for what he did," chief   
   deputy Dennis McGrane told the board. "Accidents two times, died   
   of strangulation? I don't think so."   
      
   http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/execution-slated-oldest-ariz-   
   death-row-inmate-20517464   
      
       
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)