Deadliest 48 Hours Of The Year On Death Row, Begins Tonight

Hey, they're folks. It is Wednesday, May twentieth, and over the next two days, there are three executions scheduled in the United States, and Kim Kardashian is trying to stop at least one of them. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ ropes. Yes, we've had days where they're back to back, but just something that seems like a lot over a couple of days. But yeah, three states have executions on the book starting tonight.

Yes, and it's been described as the deadliest week for the death penalty in the United States.

So far this year.

We haven't seen three people scheduled to die by lethal injection in a week, let alone in a period of two days. We haven't seen it at all until now.

And yes, and we should say, well, how does this happen? Why does this happen? It's in three different states. They're not coordinating efforts. They are signing independent death warrants. The governors are and these dates are scheduled and they just happen to fall like this, And we should mention the three states at least no, no, no, I guess one of them will come as no surprise. The second one maybe not, but another we don't hear as much from when it comes to executions.

Yes, Arizona is going to be executing its first an inmate of the year. Tennessee is also scheduled to have an execution tomorrow morning. And then yes, the state of Florida that we're all very very familiar with now when it comes to executions, is also set to execute an inmate in that state.

And Arizona, I'm trying to get the numbers right, but it somewhere around this is only their six or seventh since twenty fifteen, so they're not right. Florida had how many last year? Just to get you nineteen some context there, Arizona just doesn't do this a whole lot. But when you hear about some of these crimes and some of these criminals, these are some of the most horrific crimes you will hear about. The question then comes up ropes and is the case in a couple of these is

Yeah, let's go in order?

Uh, starting tomorrow? This is another tonight Tonight, I should say at least we starting where in Arizona.

We're starting in Arizona with Lee Roy McGill. He has been on death row for a quarter of a century.

The crime was committed on July thirteenth, two thousand and two, and what he was convicted of doing is horrific. One man died, but another woman was left with burns over seventy five percent of her body. So he doused a couple in gasoline, lit them on fire. Charles Perez died, Nova Banta survived, but my goodness, with significant injury.

And this this crime. Look, these were folks. This was all over. They claim they had accused him of stealing a gun. Is that right? Yes, okay, yes, So that's what this confrontation, this fight was about. And the way they describe it rose They were just hanging out, sitting on a couch, yep, and he decides to douse them. Now you think about that idea, that imagery of just how horrific that could have been for them, But not

Yes, it's horrific. And here when you hear what Leroy McGill was convicted of doing. Look, I hate to say he didn't just douse them with gasoline and throw a match. No, before all of that took place, he actually took the time to mix the gasoline with styrofoam, and they said it created what they described as a napalm effect, and that the idea was when he through.

This gasoline and styrofoam mixture.

That when he that it would stick to the victims and it would make their deaths more painful.

So he did this not just.

To kill them, but to make it a extremely exceptionally painful death by mixing in this styrofoam with the gasoline.

Have you ever heard of that before?

Well, it's this and this is not a spur the moment situation. That this is some planning, some premeditation, some intent, and not just intent to kill, but intend to make suffer. And this is what they often call aggravated circumstances and whatnot. This is especially heinous as they described. Now this is one robes death penalty opponents will argue and will continue

That's right, And I just thought this was the whole case, The whole murder is chilling. But reportedly again because Nova Banta lived to testify against him, she lived to be able to tell the story about what happened to her and to Charles Perez. But she claimed before he lit the match, he said out loud that he said, you shouldn't talk.

About people behind their backs.

That's he was that angry that they were saying that he stole a gun, that he went to these lengths to make them go away.

It just blows the mind. But look, his attorneys he's fighting.

He has been fighting to have his death sentence commuted, but not because he's innocent, and not because it wasn't me his attorneys of our you, there were trial errors by his defense attorneys at the time. This is a very standard appeal that defense attorneys made.

He has been turned down by every single chord.

So yes, by all accounts, this is going forward tonight in the state of Arizona.

What time is his it's in Florence. I'm not sure where that is in Arizona, i am or what time is his?

I am unclear on the time, but it is this evening and by the time it's east coast, it'll be later this evening.

But we can yes, yeah, and.

Again is this ain't that in terms of people fighting trying to prove his innocence. Even took the jury only an hour of deliberations when they convicted him the first time around. So Leroy McGill, that starts that sixty three year old Lee Roy McGill with 's this evening in Arizona. Now the other we turn to now hereroes and this is a pretty horrific crime as well. But this one

Yeah, Kim Kardashian.

The ACLU are all pointing to fingerprints that were found around the scene that aren't Tony Carruther's fingerprints, and so they are saying there is no actual physical forensic evidence that links Tony Carruthers to these murders. And should we say what the murders are? Just I have every time I read these. You read about the gasoline mixed with styrofoam, that was a first, This one, this is most people's worst nightmare to be buried alive.

Ah. Yeah, this is involved with involved kidnapping, torture, and bearing folks alive. What we're talking about here, this is a triple homicide. And he's accused of killing a mom, her son, and a friend. Now the son was twenty one or something, twenty adult males. But he's accused of killing three people, apparently all over something happened to do with drugs. But this was and he wasn't the only one convicted for this, we should know.

Yes, So this was in the Memphis area, and according to court records, this was the plan. Tony Carruthers, along with James Montgomery, that was the cohort. This was their plan to take over the drug trade basically in their neighborhood. And they wanted to show people in the neighborhood how ruthless they.

Were willing to be.

So they targeted, kidnapped this twenty one year old drug dealer. His name was Marcellos Anderson, his mother and they describe her as an innocent woman who.

Had nothing to do with any of this.

Forty three year old Deloy Anderson and then Marcello's seventeen year old friend, Frederick Trucker. Now, according to court records, Tony Carruthers, along with James Montgomery, shot the two men, rolled them into a grave that had already been dug for a planned funeral the next day, I believe, But then.

This is unbelievable. They put the mom on top alive and then buried all three and hid the bodies.

The funeral went on, and the bodies were underneath, hidden, undetected.

So if the.

Brother of one of the suspects hadn't called police, they would never have known to look. He showed them where the grave was and where those bodies had been buried.

But that woman, the mother, she died by asphyxiation. She was absolutely alive when she was buried.

So when you hear that, you would go, well, that person. Even if you're not an advocate of the death penalty, you hear somebody as guilty of that, you would go, Okay, I guess I get it. This is who the death penalty is for. However, there are questions. Now we need to talk about mister Montgomery, who was also convicted, who was actually convicted and is currently walking free.

Yes, so his cohort, James Montgomery, was convicted and sentenced to death as well, but he was freed more than ten years ago in twenty fifteen, because an appeals court ruled he should have been given a separate trial from Carruthers. They were tried together, and because of that he was set free. Literally is walking the streets right now.

So we should make clear this is another part of why folks are saying Caruthers should not be executed. He represented himself at trial. Now that sounds nuts in a capital case, in a death penalty case, how and why would you allow someone to represent himself? Well, apparently, I think it's at least six or seven defense attorneys he was assigned. He couldn't cap a good relationship with him, and he went through that many and the judge said, Nope, not going to give you another finally at the end.

And that's what the ACLU and Kim Kardashian had been pleading with the governor to allow to allow some time to really dig into these fingerprints and to just ensure that they have the right guy, that there isn't another killer out there.

All right, even if they get the prints back robes, and even if they match somebody else, it doesn't exonerate and doesn't throw out It maybe starts a new process. What about the families now having to go through this again. They finally made it to this day and he's talking about this is going to be held up. The governor there at least said he is not going to step in where things are right now, robes legally, and how

And the father of one of the victims, by the way, we always want to acknowledge where they are on this. He actually just told a Memphis station, I forgive him for killing my son, and may God have mercy on his soul. But it's time that he meets his maker. So he wants him. He wants this execution to go forward. And look, we heard from the governor of Tennessee yesterday.

He said, I will not stop this execution.

And that's certainly something we typically hear from governors. I was about to say, southern governors, that's where most of the execution fair taking place. I can't imagine him intervening. But it's ten or ten thirty tomorrow morning in Tennessee, so that would be what eleven eleven thirty our time here on the East coast. And again it seems I don't know why I think executions need to happen at night,

All right, And when we come back, we're going to tell you about the third and final execution of the week, and this one in a state who knows exactly.

What they're doing and how to do it.

They're already racking up some significant numbers for this year in their executions. But Richard Knight set to die tomorrow by lethal injection. Will tell you all about his case when we come back. Welcome back, everybody to this episode of Amy and TJ. Three executions in three states in a matter of two days, and tomorrow evening will be the third execution of the week. And it happens in a state that is very, very used to making these things happen.

I mean they follow through. There's been a.

Couple that we've been covering where we've had some last minutes days, but it doesn't look like this one is going to fall in that category.

This is I didn't realize how many baby killers there are out there. Some of these cases we've gone through a mother and a six year old or this month old of that. This is another one of those where it's just it boggles the mind how anybody is capable of this.

Why you have to kill a child who cannot remember.

What happened, can identify you.

Doesn't make any sense other than your evil. There's no other way around it. But Richard Knight was convicted in the two thousand stabbing deaths of a pregnant woman and her four year old daughter. It really doesn't get much more vile than that. And he has been sitting on death row once again for a quarter of a century, and he.

Is still I do that math. He's only forty seven. Now, just a life. I mean, I'm forty eight and this guy has been in prison half.

Of his life, more than a half of his life life, and.

You just I do I stop some time and think about the direction people's lives go. This guy and I are about the same age. What was happening to me right to twenty three years old versus what he was doing at twenty three years old? And where people in now? It just seems so young. It's stood out to me.

And what this is over so allegedly, or I shouldn't say allegedly. He was convicted. So basically he was staying in the home of his cousin's girlfriend, if that makes any sense. So she had had enough and she said, you're out of here. I'm kicking you out, You're leaving. I want you out of my home. And so he went on then to murder Odessia Stevens. She was six weeks pregnant at the time of her murder, and her

You a gainst it. I don't some of these worlds, I stop and I question. There's something else. I just don't think, no matter how good or bad or even criminal, your activity can be a way your mind can work. I think it's something else. I just don't comprehend how a human is able and capable to do what is described happened to this child at the hands of an adult. I just human. I just just you're not. You can't and there's no brain wired appropriately that can do this.

Yeah, I don't.

You can't.

I don't know how.

Yes, I don't, No matter how angry and how crazy, that to me goes beyond anything that's understandable. So Odessa Stevens had twenty one stab wounds, fourteen of them were in her neck.

So it's just you. Obviously he wanted her to die.

And then little Honessia had four stab wounds in her chest and neck, and so yes, both of them died in excruciating death. And right now, look, there's not much chance that he's going to have a stay either, but his attorneys have argued that his execution should be delayed once again over fingerprints. They say there's a fingerprint on one of the knife blades that was used in the attacks that hasn't been identified, and they want time to

Have at the time of the trial.

Understand that, but it's been around for a while now, so I just don't know, you know, if it's just a delay tactic, you're just delaying the inevitable. But I know that is oftentimes what we see. This is attorneys doing their jobs.

We want to get it right right, but at some point you gotta cut this thing off. This is kind of an extraordinary There aren't really that many This is going to be what twelve thirteen and fourteen or thirteen fourteen fifteen.

I think it's thirteen fourteen fifteen.

These will be yes up to the fifteenth execution so far this year. The numbers scheduled right now on the books, Robes, I don't know if it would take us up to the total that we saw last year. But as we say, and as we've seen certainly with our guy down.

In Florida, DeSantis, you put in front of him, he'll sign it, yes, and so yes, this final one in Florida, we already know Governor DeSantis is not going to be that phone call ringing at five point fifty nine into the Florida Correctional Facility to say stop the execution. That is, we know this governor, we know how he operates, and I'm sure I'm sure that Richard Knight's attorneys are very well aware of that as well.

So here you go, Robes, on the numbers. At least Florida only has one execution scheduled the rest of the year after this.

For now, only one as of yet.

Is on the books for June. But how many remind me, oh, I'm sorry, how many? Last year?

Nineteen in Florida andty seven was the forty seven?

Yeah, right, yeah, somewhere around, but again, at the pace the country is on right now, and those that have been scheduled after today, there are only nine more scheduled three, four, five, six, seven, eight nine, Only nine more on the books for the year, which would take us up then to twenty four for the year, which would cut in half almost how many we saw last year, which is.

Forty seven forty seven executions across eleven states, and nineteen of those, or forty percent of the executions, happened in Florida. And last year twenty twenty five was the highest number of executions in one year since two thousand and nine.

So we will see how the rest of the year looks. But man, if we kept up averages three in two days, that's happened in the country and we need to all be paying attention again one of them. At least in Tennessee. Folks are fighting to stop it, but at least there's not a governor that's suggesting that they're going to step in, and no court right now it seems likely to step in either. We'll keep an eye on it, folks, but as always, we appreciate you spending time with us. I'm TJ.