A man who confessed to the grisly sex slayings of three boys and warned he would kill again was executed on the gallows early Tuesday in the nation's first hanging since 1965.
Westley Allan Dodd, 31, was pronounced dead at 12:09 a.m., four minutes after the hooded inmate dropped through a trap door and fell the full length of his 7-foot, 1-inch rope.Given the option of hanging or lethal injection, Dodd had asked for hanging because, he said, he hanged the body of one of his victims and wanted the same treatment. He had dropped all appeals and asked to be allowed to die, warning, "I will kill and rape again and enjoy every minute of it."
Late Monday, the state Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution when it issued a one-sentence ruling rejecting a bid by 26 Washington residents to halt the hanging as cruel and unusual punishment. The vote was 7-1.
It was Washington state's first execution since 1963.
The last hangings in the United States were in 1965 in Kansas, when four murderers were put to death. Among them were Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, the subjects of Truman Capote's book "In Cold Blood."
"I was once asked by somebody, I don't remember who, if there was any way sex offenders could be stopped," Dodd said in his final statement. "I said no. I was wrong.
"I was wrong when I said there was no hope, no peace. There is hope. There is peace. I found both in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Look to the Lord and you will find peace."
After Dodd dropped through the trap door, there was little movement other than the gentle swinging of the body before a curtain was drawn across a window between witnesses and the death chamber.
Death penalty foes had held prayer meetings, vigils and demonstrations across the state in the hours before the execution. Prison officials arrested five death penalty opponents after they climbed a snowy embankment near a guard tower. They were in jail early Tuesday.
About 150 people in favor of Dodd's death gathered outside the prison and cheered his hanging. Some set off firecrackers and sparklers.
Dodd pleaded guilty to the 1989 murders of three boys in the Vancouver area and was sentenced to death in 1990. The crimes were so grisly that some of the jurors who sentenced him sought psychiatric help afterward.
Once described by a prosecutor as "predatory and uncontrollable," Dodd had been arrested several times for child molesting by his mid-20s. For years, his pattern was to molest, get caught, confess, serve a little time and undergo a little counseling.
Until the youngsters' slayings, he never served more than 10 months in prison.
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U.S. executions
A breakdown, by state, of executions carried out since 1976.
Texas: 54 Florida: 29
Louisiana: 20 Virginia: 17
Georgia: 15 Alabama: 10
Missouri: 7 Nevada: 5
North Carolina: 5 Mississippi: 4
South Carolina: 4 Arkansas: 4
UTAH: 4 Oklahoma: 3
Indiana: 2 Illinois: 1
Wyoming: 1 Delaware: 1
Arizona: 1 California: 1
Washington: 1