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Derrick Quintero and William Hall were
sentenced to death for the 1988 murders of Myrtle and Buford Vester in
their Stewart County home. Quintero and Hall, escapees from Kentucky
State Penitentiary at Eddyville, entered the Vesters’ home through a
window, shot and stabbed the couple and stole their car.
Derrick Quintero
On June 16, 1988, eight prisoners escaped from
Three Cellhouse, the maximum security section of the Kentucky State
Penitentiary in Eddyville, Kentucky. Three of the eight escaped
prisoners, Billy Hall, Derrick Quintero and James Blanton, traveled
together to Stewart County, Tennessee, fifty miles from the prison,
where they brutally murdered Buford and Myrtle Vester.
The death certificates listed the date of death for
both victims as June 22, 1988, the date their bodies were found.
Buford Vester was shot from an outside window. Myrtle Vester was
shot once with a high powered rifle, was shot again at close range
with a sawed-off shotgun, and was stabbed repeatedly in the neck and
chest. Following a trial by jury, Hall, Quintero and Blanton were
each found guilty of the murders of Buford and Myrtle Vester and
sentenced to death.
