Virginia Supreme Court

opinion 960069

The United States Court of Appeals
For the Fourth Circuit

opinion 98-28

clemency petition

Drug dealer Marlon Williams was sentenced to die for the hired murder of Helen Bedsole who was divorcing her husband after 25 years of marriage.  Her husband, Clark Bedsole, hired Williams to kill his wife for $4000. 

Clark Bedsole knew Williams because Williams had been selling him cocaine.  On November 11, 1993, she was shot twice in the head as she was standing in her kitchen.  Williams had numerous previous convictions.  A taped conversation with an informant during which he bragged about the murder led to Williams arrest. 

The Supreme Court rejected his appeal in Nov. 1996. Williams' lawyer has largely based Williams' clemency petition to Gov. Jim Gilmore on the abuse and neglect suffered by his client during his childhood and adolescence. 

Sherry Bedsole of Jarvisburg, N.C., was 21 when her mother was slain.  She said "I'm sorry that DeWayne had such a bad childhood, but for the last 6 years what me and my brother went through would not excuse us to go out and kill somebody."  "He's getting what he deserves," she said. "What he's put our family through for the last 6 years won't even compare to 10 minutes of him getting his lethal injection." As far as her father is concerned, Sherry Bedsole said, "He's lucky he's not lying right beside him." 

Clark Bedsole was tried by a jury and got a life sentence. He will first be eligible for parole in 2016.  Ann Cascell of Norfolk, Helen Bedsole's brother's wife, said, "This excuse of abuse is just unreal. There are millions of adults out there who were abused and who never killed anybody.  No matter what the circumstances are, death is 100 percent, and 100% means he will never, never hurt anybody inside or outside prison again." 

Sherry Bedsole and Cascell said several family members, themselves included, plan to view the execution. "He doesn't even have to look at us when he dies, and we feel that he should have to," said Cascell. "They say the death penalty is not humane? Well, I don't know about the electric chair, but I feel lethal injection is more humane than what he did to Helen," she said. 

Sherry Bedsole said, "I'm just upset about the whole situation -- that (Williams is) going to the governor to seek clemency," she said. "I just have to voice my opinion because my mom's not here to do it."  Sherry Bedsole points out that Williams was also convicted of cutting the throat of Virginia Parker, the 71-year-old grandmother of his girlfriend, in 1994. He pleaded guilty to charges of burglary and malicious wounding in connection with that assault. 

Sherry Bedsole said, "He had planned a massacre on his girlfriend's whole family after he killed my mom. . . . He did not get the death penalty just because he killed my mom. There was more involved."

  

EXECUTION FACTS:

MARLON DEWAYNE WILLIAMS 8/17/1999, JARRATT, VIRGINIA

THE CRIME: In a 1993 murder-for-hire slaying, Williams gunned down a woman in her kitchen.

LAST MEAL: Williams asked the contents of his last meal not be made public.

LAST WORDS: No final statement.

NOTABLES: Virginia uses lethal injection. Williams was the 10th Virginia execution this year, the 69th since 1976, second only to Texas. Williams received $4000 from the victim's estranged husband. The husband was also tried and, instead of the death penalty, was sentenced to life in prison. Williams is black; the husband is white. To get to the victim's house, Williams rode a bicycle. At the execution, one of the deceased woman's family said she was "amazed at how humane it is, how clinical and how humane it is."

  

Marlon DeWayne Williams, 26, 99-08-17, Virginia

A man who fatally shot a woman after being paid $4,000 by the woman's husband was executed by injection Tuesday.

Marlon DeWayne Williams, 26, killed Helen Bedsole in a murder-for-hire arranged by her husband. Williams was pronounced dead at 9:03 p.m., said Chief Warden David Garraghty.

Williams, who was shaking from the moment he entered the death chamber, did not make a final statement.

Williams pleaded guilty to the Nov. 9, 1993, shooting death of Mrs. Bedsole. Clark Bedsole was convicted by a jury and is serving a life term.

The Bedsoles were in the middle of a divorce when Bedsole paid Williams to kill his wife.

Williams becomes the 10th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Virginia and the 69th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. Only Texas, with 184 executions, has put more condemned inmates to death since 1976.

(sources: Associated Press and Rick Halperin)