Speaker 1: Hey, they're folks. It is Wednesday, May twentieth, and over
Speaker 1: the next two days, there are three executions scheduled in
Speaker 1: the United States, and Kim Kardashian is trying to stop
Speaker 1: at least one of them. And with that, welcome to
Speaker 1: this episode of Amy and TJ ropes. Yes, we've had
Speaker 1: days where they're back to back, but just something that
Speaker 1: seems like a lot over a couple of days. But yeah,
Speaker 1: three states have executions on the book starting tonight.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's been described as the deadliest week for
Speaker 2: the death penalty in the United States.
Speaker 3: So far this year.
Speaker 2: We haven't seen three people scheduled to die by lethal
Speaker 2: injection in a week, let alone in a period of
Speaker 2: two days. We haven't seen it at all until now.
Speaker 1: And yes, and we should say, well, how does this happen?
Speaker 1: Why does this happen? It's in three different states. They're
Speaker 1: not coordinating efforts. They are signing independent death warrants. The
Speaker 1: governors are and these dates are scheduled and they just
Speaker 1: happen to fall like this, And we should mention the
Speaker 1: three states at least no, no, no, I guess one of
Speaker 1: them will come as no surprise. The second one maybe not,
Speaker 1: but another we don't hear as much from when it
Speaker 1: comes to executions.
Speaker 2: Yes, Arizona is going to be executing its first an
Speaker 2: inmate of the year. Tennessee is also scheduled to have
Speaker 2: an execution tomorrow morning. And then yes, the state of
Speaker 2: Florida that we're all very very familiar with now when
Speaker 2: it comes to executions, is also set to execute an
Speaker 2: inmate in that state.
Speaker 1: And Arizona, I'm trying to get the numbers right, but
Speaker 1: it somewhere around this is only their six or seventh
Speaker 1: since twenty fifteen, so they're not right. Florida had how
Speaker 1: many last year? Just to get you nineteen some context there,
Speaker 1: Arizona just doesn't do this a whole lot. But when
Speaker 1: you hear about some of these crimes and some of
Speaker 1: these criminals, these are some of the most horrific crimes
Speaker 1: you will hear about. The question then comes up ropes
Speaker 1: and is the case in a couple of these is
Speaker 1: the right guy on death row for those crimes? We'll
Speaker 1: get into. Who's trying to get some folks out? Do
Speaker 1: we want to go in order?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go in order?
Speaker 1: Uh, starting tomorrow? This is another tonight Tonight, I should
Speaker 1: say at least we starting where in Arizona.
Speaker 3: We're starting in Arizona with Lee Roy McGill. He has
Speaker 3: been on death row for a quarter of a century.
Speaker 2: The crime was committed on July thirteenth, two thousand and two,
Speaker 2: and what he was convicted of doing is horrific. One
Speaker 2: man died, but another woman was left with burns over
Speaker 2: seventy five percent of her body. So he doused a
Speaker 2: couple in gasoline, lit them on fire. Charles Perez died,
Speaker 2: Nova Banta survived, but my goodness, with significant injury.
Speaker 1: And this this crime. Look, these were folks. This was
Speaker 1: all over. They claim they had accused him of stealing
Speaker 1: a gun. Is that right? Yes, okay, yes, So that's
Speaker 1: what this confrontation, this fight was about. And the way
Speaker 1: they describe it rose They were just hanging out, sitting
Speaker 1: on a couch, yep, and he decides to douse them.
Speaker 1: Now you think about that idea, that imagery of just
Speaker 1: how horrific that could have been for them, But not
Speaker 1: just that robe they this happened. They were able to
Speaker 1: both of them run out of the house after they
Speaker 1: caught fire, went outside. Some neighbor saw them put her
Speaker 1: out at least, but he died later at the hospital.
Speaker 1: She survived again. Third degree is how they describe him.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's horrific. And here when you hear what Leroy
Speaker 2: McGill was convicted of doing. Look, I hate to say
Speaker 2: he didn't just douse them with gasoline and throw a match. No,
Speaker 2: before all of that took place, he actually took the
Speaker 2: time to mix the gasoline with styrofoam, and they said
Speaker 2: it created what they described as a napalm effect, and
Speaker 2: that the idea was when he through.
Speaker 3: This gasoline and styrofoam mixture.
Speaker 2: That when he that it would stick to the victims
Speaker 2: and it would make their deaths more painful.
Speaker 3: So he did this not just.
Speaker 2: To kill them, but to make it a extremely exceptionally
Speaker 2: painful death by mixing in this styrofoam with the gasoline.
Speaker 3: Have you ever heard of that before?
Speaker 1: Well, it's this and this is not a spur the
Speaker 1: moment situation. That this is some planning, some premeditation, some intent,
Speaker 1: and not just intent to kill, but intend to make suffer.
Speaker 1: And this is what they often call aggravated circumstances and whatnot.
Speaker 1: This is especially heinous as they described. Now this is
Speaker 1: one robes death penalty opponents will argue and will continue
Speaker 1: to sound the alarm about every death penalty case. This
Speaker 1: ain't a situation, though, where anyone is saying, hey, we
Speaker 1: need to test this or test that, or maybe it
Speaker 1: wasn't him, you have a survivor this is This is
Speaker 1: a very different situation. To the point, he didn't to
Speaker 1: even ask for clemency. He this is one of these
Speaker 1: rare cases where he didn't go through all the appeals
Speaker 1: and all the options he had. So this looks like
Speaker 1: one this evening is going to go through and not
Speaker 1: much is going to step in and stop this.
Speaker 2: That's right, And I just thought this was the whole case,
Speaker 2: The whole murder is chilling. But reportedly again because Nova
Speaker 2: Banta lived to testify against him, she lived to be
Speaker 2: able to tell the story about what happened to her
Speaker 2: and to Charles Perez. But she claimed before he lit
Speaker 2: the match, he said out loud that he said, you
Speaker 2: shouldn't talk.
Speaker 3: About people behind their backs.
Speaker 2: That's he was that angry that they were saying that
Speaker 2: he stole a gun, that he went to these lengths
Speaker 2: to make them go away.
Speaker 3: It just blows the mind. But look, his attorneys he's fighting.
Speaker 2: He has been fighting to have his death sentence commuted,
Speaker 2: but not because he's innocent, and not because it wasn't
Speaker 2: me his attorneys of our you, there were trial errors
Speaker 2: by his defense attorneys at the time. This is a
Speaker 2: very standard appeal that defense attorneys made.
Speaker 3: He has been turned down by every single chord.
Speaker 2: So yes, by all accounts, this is going forward tonight
Speaker 2: in the state of Arizona.
Speaker 1: What time is his it's in Florence. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where that is in Arizona, i am or what time
Speaker 1: is his?
Speaker 2: I am unclear on the time, but it is this
Speaker 2: evening and by the time it's east coast, it'll be
Speaker 2: later this evening.
Speaker 3: But we can yes, yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Again is this ain't that in terms of people fighting
Speaker 1: trying to prove his innocence. Even took the jury only
Speaker 1: an hour of deliberations when they convicted him the first
Speaker 1: time around. So Leroy McGill, that starts that sixty three
Speaker 1: year old Lee Roy McGill with 's this evening in Arizona.
Speaker 1: Now the other we turn to now hereroes and this
Speaker 1: is a pretty horrific crime as well. But this one
Speaker 1: is scheduled for tomorrow morning. In Tennessee. This is Tony Carrthers. Now,
Speaker 1: the description of this crime is absolutely horrific, But an
Speaker 1: argument is being made now that there's possibly some evidence
Speaker 1: out there that could clear the guy who's about to
Speaker 1: be executed tomorrow morning. For its people are speaking up
Speaker 1: and this is the one I was mentioning about. Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 2: The ACLU are all pointing to fingerprints that were found
Speaker 2: around the scene that aren't Tony Carruther's fingerprints, and so
Speaker 2: they are saying there is no actual physical forensic evidence
Speaker 2: that links Tony Carruthers to these murders. And should we
Speaker 2: say what the murders are? Just I have every time
Speaker 2: I read these. You read about the gasoline mixed with styrofoam,
Speaker 2: that was a first, This one, this is most people's
Speaker 2: worst nightmare to be buried alive.
Speaker 1: Ah. Yeah, this is involved with involved kidnapping, torture, and
Speaker 1: bearing folks alive. What we're talking about here, this is
Speaker 1: a triple homicide. And he's accused of killing a mom,
Speaker 1: her son, and a friend. Now the son was twenty
Speaker 1: one or something, twenty adult males. But he's accused of
Speaker 1: killing three people, apparently all over something happened to do
Speaker 1: with drugs. But this was and he wasn't the only
Speaker 1: one convicted for this, we should know.
Speaker 2: Yes, So this was in the Memphis area, and according
Speaker 2: to court records, this was the plan. Tony Carruthers, along
Speaker 2: with James Montgomery, that was the cohort. This was their
Speaker 2: plan to take over the drug trade basically in their neighborhood.
Speaker 2: And they wanted to show people in the neighborhood how
Speaker 2: ruthless they.
Speaker 3: Were willing to be.
Speaker 2: So they targeted, kidnapped this twenty one year old drug dealer.
Speaker 2: His name was Marcellos Anderson, his mother and they describe
Speaker 2: her as an innocent woman who.
Speaker 3: Had nothing to do with any of this.
Speaker 2: Forty three year old Deloy Anderson and then Marcello's seventeen
Speaker 2: year old friend, Frederick Trucker. Now, according to court records,
Speaker 2: Tony Carruthers, along with James Montgomery, shot the two men,
Speaker 2: rolled them into a grave that had already been dug
Speaker 2: for a planned funeral the next day, I believe, But then.
Speaker 3: This is unbelievable. They put the mom on top alive
Speaker 3: and then buried all three and hid the bodies.
Speaker 2: The funeral went on, and the bodies were underneath, hidden, undetected.
Speaker 3: So if the.
Speaker 2: Brother of one of the suspects hadn't called police, they
Speaker 2: would never have known to look. He showed them where
Speaker 2: the grave was and where those bodies had been buried.
Speaker 3: But that woman, the mother, she died by asphyxiation. She
Speaker 3: was absolutely alive when she was buried.
Speaker 1: So when you hear that, you would go, well, that person.
Speaker 1: Even if you're not an advocate of the death penalty,
Speaker 1: you hear somebody as guilty of that, you would go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I get it. This is who the death
Speaker 1: penalty is for. However, there are questions. Now we need
Speaker 1: to talk about mister Montgomery, who was also convicted, who
Speaker 1: was actually convicted and is currently walking free.
Speaker 2: Yes, so his cohort, James Montgomery, was convicted and sentenced
Speaker 2: to death as well, but he was freed more than
Speaker 2: ten years ago in twenty fifteen, because an appeals court
Speaker 2: ruled he should have been given a separate trial from Carruthers.
Speaker 2: They were tried together, and because of that he was
Speaker 2: set free. Literally is walking the streets right now.
Speaker 1: So we should make clear this is another part of
Speaker 1: why folks are saying Caruthers should not be executed. He
Speaker 1: represented himself at trial. Now that sounds nuts in a
Speaker 1: capital case, in a death penalty case, how and why
Speaker 1: would you allow someone to represent himself? Well, apparently, I
Speaker 1: think it's at least six or seven defense attorneys he
Speaker 1: was assigned. He couldn't cap a good relationship with him,
Speaker 1: and he went through that many and the judge said, Nope,
Speaker 1: not going to give you another finally at the end.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure how much of his trial he
Speaker 1: represented himself, but he didn't have a fair obviously he
Speaker 1: didn't do it with the death pill on the line,
Speaker 1: you can't represent yourself. So that is another argument they're
Speaker 1: making for why he shouldn't be executed tonight. Correct this evidence.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's another one of those things robes. I
Speaker 1: always say, oh, why not take another beat? If he's
Speaker 1: been on death row this many years, then give us
Speaker 1: a week to do some testing. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I can argue with that.
Speaker 2: And that's what the ACLU and Kim Kardashian had been
Speaker 2: pleading with the governor to allow to allow some time
Speaker 2: to really dig into these fingerprints and to just ensure
Speaker 2: that they have the right guy, that there isn't another
Speaker 2: killer out there.
Speaker 1: All right, even if they get the prints back robes,
Speaker 1: and even if they match somebody else, it doesn't exonerate
Speaker 1: and doesn't throw out It maybe starts a new process.
Speaker 1: What about the families now having to go through this again.
Speaker 1: They finally made it to this day and he's talking
Speaker 1: about this is going to be held up. The governor
Speaker 1: there at least said he is not going to step
Speaker 1: in where things are right now, robes legally, and how
Speaker 1: many options he has in a court right now? We
Speaker 1: know how the Supreme Court usually is, so not expecting
Speaker 1: much there maybe so he's running out of options. And
Speaker 1: this is not tomorrow night, this is tomorrow morning morning. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the father of one of the victims, by the way,
Speaker 2: we always want to acknowledge where they are on this.
Speaker 2: He actually just told a Memphis station, I forgive him
Speaker 2: for killing my son, and may God have mercy on
Speaker 2: his soul. But it's time that he meets his maker.
Speaker 2: So he wants him. He wants this execution to go forward.
Speaker 2: And look, we heard from the governor of Tennessee yesterday.
Speaker 2: He made an official announcement and he said he took time,
Speaker 2: he said, after deliberate consideration, and he says he thoroughly
Speaker 2: reviewed the case.
Speaker 3: He said, I will not stop this execution.
Speaker 1: And that's certainly something we typically hear from governors. I
Speaker 1: was about to say, southern governors, that's where most of
Speaker 1: the execution fair taking place. I can't imagine him intervening.
Speaker 1: But it's ten or ten thirty tomorrow morning in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: so that would be what eleven eleven thirty our time
Speaker 1: here on the East coast. And again it seems I
Speaker 1: don't know why I think executions need to happen at night,
Speaker 1: but Tennessee's they are. They do theirs in the morning
Speaker 1: to give themselves time for the death warrant in case
Speaker 1: something goes wrong, gains the drug cocktail, isn't right, whatever
Speaker 1: it may be. So tomorrow morning, that's happening.
Speaker 2: All right, And when we come back, we're going to
Speaker 2: tell you about the third and final execution of the week,
Speaker 2: and this one in a state who knows exactly.
Speaker 3: What they're doing and how to do it.
Speaker 2: They're already racking up some significant numbers for this year
Speaker 2: in their executions. But Richard Knight set to die tomorrow
Speaker 2: by lethal injection. Will tell you all about his case
Speaker 2: when we come back. Welcome back, everybody to this episode
Speaker 2: of Amy and TJ. Three executions in three states in
Speaker 2: a matter of two days, and tomorrow evening will be
Speaker 2: the third execution of the week. And it happens in
Speaker 2: a state that is very, very used to making these
Speaker 2: things happen.
Speaker 3: I mean they follow through. There's been a.
Speaker 2: Couple that we've been covering where we've had some last
Speaker 2: minutes days, but it doesn't look like this one is
Speaker 2: going to fall in that category.
Speaker 1: This is I didn't realize how many baby killers there
Speaker 1: are out there. Some of these cases we've gone through
Speaker 1: a mother and a six year old or this month
Speaker 1: old of that. This is another one of those where
Speaker 1: it's just it boggles the mind how anybody is capable
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 3: Why you have to kill a child who cannot remember.
Speaker 1: What happened, can identify you.
Speaker 2: Doesn't make any sense other than your evil. There's no
Speaker 2: other way around it. But Richard Knight was convicted in
Speaker 2: the two thousand stabbing deaths of a pregnant woman and
Speaker 2: her four year old daughter. It really doesn't get much
Speaker 2: more vile than that. And he has been sitting on
Speaker 2: death row once again for a quarter of a century,
Speaker 2: and he.
Speaker 1: Is still I do that math. He's only forty seven. Now,
Speaker 1: just a life. I mean, I'm forty eight and this
Speaker 1: guy has been in prison half.
Speaker 3: Of his life, more than a half of his life life, and.
Speaker 1: You just I do I stop some time and think
Speaker 1: about the direction people's lives go. This guy and I
Speaker 1: are about the same age. What was happening to me
Speaker 1: right to twenty three years old versus what he was
Speaker 1: doing at twenty three years old? And where people in now?
Speaker 1: It just seems so young. It's stood out to me.
Speaker 2: And what this is over so allegedly, or I shouldn't
Speaker 2: say allegedly. He was convicted. So basically he was staying
Speaker 2: in the home of his cousin's girlfriend, if that makes
Speaker 2: any sense. So she had had enough and she said,
Speaker 2: you're out of here. I'm kicking you out, You're leaving.
Speaker 2: I want you out of my home. And so he
Speaker 2: went on then to murder Odessia Stevens. She was six
Speaker 2: weeks pregnant at the time of her murder, and her
Speaker 2: four year old daughter, Hanessia. And this again all because
Speaker 2: she told him he had to find another place to live.
Speaker 2: And boy was he enraged because stabbing. I just those
Speaker 2: are the deaths where you know it's personal, there is
Speaker 2: rage involved against the kid.
Speaker 1: You a gainst it. I don't some of these worlds,
Speaker 1: I stop and I question. There's something else. I just
Speaker 1: don't think, no matter how good or bad or even criminal,
Speaker 1: your activity can be a way your mind can work.
Speaker 1: I think it's something else. I just don't comprehend how
Speaker 1: a human is able and capable to do what is
Speaker 1: described happened to this child at the hands of an adult.
Speaker 1: I just human. I just just you're not. You can't
Speaker 1: and there's no brain wired appropriately that can do this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 3: I don't know how.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't, No matter how angry and how crazy,
Speaker 2: that to me goes beyond anything that's understandable. So Odessa
Speaker 2: Stevens had twenty one stab wounds, fourteen of them were
Speaker 2: in her neck.
Speaker 3: So it's just you. Obviously he wanted her to die.
Speaker 2: And then little Honessia had four stab wounds in her
Speaker 2: chest and neck, and so yes, both of them died
Speaker 2: in excruciating death. And right now, look, there's not much
Speaker 2: chance that he's going to have a stay either, but
Speaker 2: his attorneys have argued that his execution should be delayed
Speaker 2: once again over fingerprints. They say there's a fingerprint on
Speaker 2: one of the knife blades that was used in the
Speaker 2: attacks that hasn't been identified, and they want time to
Speaker 2: test this fingerprints. I'm just wondering, like, in all of
Speaker 2: these cases, these aren't recent murders, these aren't recent convictions.
Speaker 2: Why oh why do we wait until the eleventh hour
Speaker 2: to start saying, wait a minute, there's still DNA that
Speaker 2: hasn't been tested or hasn't been identified. And I understand
Speaker 2: that we have new technology that allows for different kinds
Speaker 2: of testing in different ways to look at at evidence
Speaker 2: that we didn't.
Speaker 3: Have at the time of the trial.
Speaker 2: Understand that, but it's been around for a while now,
Speaker 2: so I just don't know, you know, if it's just
Speaker 2: a delay tactic, you're just delaying the inevitable. But I
Speaker 2: know that is oftentimes what we see. This is attorneys
Speaker 2: doing their jobs.
Speaker 1: We want to get it right right, but at some
Speaker 1: point you gotta cut this thing off. This is kind
Speaker 1: of an extraordinary There aren't really that many This is
Speaker 1: going to be what twelve thirteen and fourteen or thirteen
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 3: I think it's thirteen fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: These will be yes up to the fifteenth execution so
Speaker 1: far this year. The numbers scheduled right now on the books, Robes,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it would take us up to
Speaker 1: the total that we saw last year. But as we say,
Speaker 1: and as we've seen certainly with our guy down.
Speaker 2: In Florida, DeSantis, you put in front of him, he'll
Speaker 2: sign it, yes, and so yes, this final one in Florida,
Speaker 2: we already know Governor DeSantis is not going to be
Speaker 2: that phone call ringing at five point fifty nine into
Speaker 2: the Florida Correctional Facility to say stop the execution. That is,
Speaker 2: we know this governor, we know how he operates, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure I'm sure that Richard Knight's attorneys are very
Speaker 2: well aware of that as well.
Speaker 1: So here you go, Robes, on the numbers. At least
Speaker 1: Florida only has one execution scheduled the rest of the
Speaker 1: year after this.
Speaker 3: For now, only one as of yet.
Speaker 1: Is on the books for June. But how many remind me, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, how many? Last year?
Speaker 3: Nineteen in Florida andty seven was the forty seven?
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, yeah, somewhere around, but again, at the pace
Speaker 1: the country is on right now, and those that have
Speaker 1: been scheduled after today, there are only nine more scheduled three, four, five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight nine, Only nine more on the books for the year,
Speaker 1: which would take us up then to twenty four for
Speaker 1: the year, which would cut in half almost how many
Speaker 1: we saw last year, which is.
Speaker 2: Forty seven forty seven executions across eleven states, and nineteen
Speaker 2: of those, or forty percent of the executions, happened in Florida.
Speaker 2: And last year twenty twenty five was the highest number
Speaker 2: of executions in one year since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: So we will see how the rest of the year looks.
Speaker 1: But man, if we kept up averages three in two days,
Speaker 1: that's happened in the country and we need to all
Speaker 1: be paying attention again one of them. At least in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Folks are fighting to stop it, but at least there's
Speaker 1: not a governor that's suggesting that they're going to step in,
Speaker 1: and no court right now it seems likely to step
Speaker 1: in either. We'll keep an eye on it, folks, but
Speaker 1: as always, we appreciate you spending time with us. I'm TJ.
Speaker 1: Holmes on behalf of My Dear Amy Robot. We'll talk soon.