With relatives of his victims watching, the "Freeway Killer" was executed early today for torturing and murdering 14 boys and dumping their nude, mutilated bodies along Southern California highways.
William Bonin, just the third person executed in the state in 30 years, declared in his final statement that the death penalty "sends the wrong message" to America's youth.He said anyone contemplating "anything serious against the law" should first "go to a quiet place and think about it seriously."
Bonin, 49, executed in a room that used to serve as the gas chamber, was the state's first inmate put to death by injection. California had not had an execution since August 1993.
David McVicker, who was kidnapped and raped by Bonin, witnessed the execution, and proclaimed: "It is justice. Bonin is gone."
McVicker burst into tears while watching the execution and embraced a woman sitting next to him. Relatives of two victims brought photographs of them into the chamber and clutched the pictures closely as the execution proceeded.
Later, in the parking lot of a motel a few miles from San Quentin, about a dozen or so friends and relatives of victims gathered to toast Bonin's demise. McVicker passed paper cups around, then filled them with champagne.
"I put this thing to rest a long time ago. He got the easy way out, not like the guys he killed," Steve Kendrick said.
Kendrick's brother Darin was 19 when Bonin kidnapped him from
his job as a supermarket boxboy, strangled him and jammed an ice pick into his ear.
Bonin had been on death row for 14 years for the murders that terrorized Southern California in 1979 and 1980. His victims, ages 12 to 19, were sexually abused, tortured and, except for one, strangled. The exception was a 17-year-old German tourist, who was stabbed about 70 times.
"Justice has finally been done," Gov. Pete Wilson said. "I hope and pray that the families and loved ones of Bonin's victims may finally find some peace."
Bonin, who told a reporter he had killed 21 people, was convicted of 10 murders in Los Angeles County and four in Orange County. He received two death sentences.
Two of his accomplices, James Munro and Gregory Miley, testified against him in exchange for lighter sentences. Another hanged himself before trial.
In appeals, Bonin's lawyers claimed he didn't get a fair trial.
Late Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the lawyers had waited too long to claim misconduct by the prosecution.