Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 22, 2020 5:27:33 GMT -5
Federal Inmate Set to Die Blames Witchcraft for Crime
William Emmett LeCroy, 50, a former soldier, is scheduled to be executed today, Tuesday, September 22, at the U.S. prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. LeCroy, who was sentenced to death for killing a Georgia nurse, blames witchcraft for his crime.
Defense attorneys petitioned President Trump to commute their client’s sentence to life in prison, citing mitigating circumstances, one being the fact his brother, Georgia State Tropper Chad LeCroy, was killed in 2010 during a routine traffic stop. “The pain and sorrow felt by the LeCroy family at potentially losing two of their sons is unimaginable,” the petition read.
On October 7, 2001, LeCroy broke into the mountain home of 30-year-old Joann Lee Tiesler, who lived near one of his relatives. He was in the process of burglarizing the house when the young woman came returned from a shopping trip and as soon as she walked through the door, he bashed her over the head with a shotgun. He then proceeded to bind and rape the young woman, after which he slashed her throat and repeatedly stabbed her in the back. Unperturbed by the bloody corpse, LeCroy used Tiesler’s computer to search for books on witchcraft. He later told investigators he had developed an interest in witchcraft while serving a prior prison sentence for burglary, child molestation and other charges.
Because the witchcraft had disturbed his mind, he claimed he had come to believe Tiesler was a babysitter, whom he called “Tinkerbell,” and that she had looked after, and sexually molested, him as a child. He said he became convinced killing her was the only way to remove a spell she had put on him.
Two days after murdering Tiesler, LeCroy had made his way to Minnesota in the dead woman’s truck where he was arrested just before reaching the Canadian border.
Authorities found a note in LeCroy’s possession in which he asked Tiesler’s forgiveness. “You were an angel and I killed you,” the note read. “I am a vagabond and doomed to hell.”
LeCroy was charged under the federal carjacking statute for stealing Tiesler’s truck. His attorneys argued their client had no intention of stealing the vehicle until Tiesler came home. Prosecutors countered by insisting LeCroy intended to steal the truck from the beginning and was lying in wait for his victim’s return.
At his 2004 trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to die by lethal injection.
LeCroy, a career criminal, joined the army at the age of 17, but was soon dishonorably discharged for desertion.
Another federal inmate, 40-year-old Christopher Vialva, is scheduled to die Thursday, September 24, for a 1999 carjacking in Killeen, Texas, during which he murdered Todd and Stacie Bagley, two youth ministers from Iowa.
Sources: Michael Tarm, The Associated Press, September 22, 2020; The Associated Press, March 11, 2004; and Tommy Witherspoon, The Waco Tribune-Herald, August 3, 2020.