Florence, Arizona
AP
—
A man convicted of killing 4 members of a Phoenix family over 30 years in the past in an act of revenge over stolen items was put to loss of life Friday in Arizona’s second execution of the year.
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Richard Kenneth Djerf, 55, died by deadly injection for the killings of Albert Luna Sr. and Patricia Luna; their daughter Rochelle Luna, 18; and son Damien Luna, 5, at their dwelling on Sept. 14, 1993. Djerf, who was in jail for over 29 years, selected to not search clemency.
His execution was the fourth in the country this week and the thirty ninth of the 12 months.
“Those four innocent victims deserve justice, and their loved ones deserve closure,” stated Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose workplace sought the execution.
Prosecutors stated Djerf blamed one other family member, Albert Luna Jr., who didn’t witness the killings, for an earlier theft of electronics and a gun from his condominium. Djerf grew to become obsessive about exacting revenge and went to the house months later claiming to be delivering flowers, prosecutors stated.
Authorities say Djerf sexually assaulted Rochelle Luna and slashed her throat; beat Albert Luna Sr. with an aluminum baseball bat then stabbed and shot him; and tied Patricia and Damien Luna to kitchen chairs earlier than fatally taking pictures them.
Djerf declined to make any final assertion. He didn’t put up any resistance however took a few heavy breaths and emitted a transient loud night breathing sound after the deadly medicine had been administered, John Barcello, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, stated throughout a information convention Friday.
No representatives of the victims had been current, Barcello stated.
It took about 10 minutes for the execution workforce to insert the IV traces into his veins so the medicine could possibly be administered. After the primary of two pentobarbital pictures got, he made a number of sounds, together with a grunt and puffing sound. About quarter-hour elapsed between the primary pentobarbital shot and the declaration that he was lifeless.
Barcello stated Djerf’s veins “were not optimal” and it required a few makes an attempt to efficiently place the IV.
“By all accounts the process went according to plan and without any incident,” Barcello stated. A month in the past, Djerf released a statement in which he acknowledged finishing up the killings and apologized for the ache he precipitated.
Arizona has been criticized in the previous for taking too lengthy to insert IVs throughout deadly injection executions. Experts say it ought to take seven to 10 minutes from the start of insertion till a proclamation of loss of life.
The state has paused executions twice since 2014 amid issues over its use of the loss of life penalty.
There was a almost eight-year hiatus introduced on by difficulties in acquiring the wanted medicine and criticism that a 2014 execution was botched: Joseph Wood was injected with 15 doses of a two-drug mixture over two hours, main him to snort repeatedly and gasp tons of of instances earlier than he died.
Executions resumed in 2022, and three prisoners were put to death that 12 months. They had been paused once more in 2023 after Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered a evaluation of the capital punishment protocol and Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes agreed to not pursue any executions.
The evaluation ended in November 2024, when Hobbs fired a retired federal Justice of the Peace she had appointed to look at execution procedures, and the state corrections division introduced modifications in the deadly injection workforce.
Arizona final carried out a loss of life sentence in mid-March, executing Aaron Brian Gunches for the 2002 killing of Ted Price.
With Djerf’s execution, there at the moment are 107 prisoners on Arizona’s loss of life row.
Five extra executions are scheduled in the U.S. this 12 months — two in Florida and one every in Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee, in response to the Death Penalty Information Center.