A Tennessee man who savagely shot to death his girlfriend and her six- and nine-year-old daughters in 1988 and was later condemned to death was executed on Tuesday. The headlines centered around critics of the execution who pointed to the fact that the state had refused to deactivate his implanted defibrillator, causing him pain while he was dying.
Before Byron Black, 69, executed his girlfriend, Angela Clay, 29, and her daughters, Latoya, 9, and Lakeisha, 6, he had been involved in a dispute with Clay’s husband, Bennie, from whom she was separated. Black shot Bennie Clay in the shoulder and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with work release permitted. When he was temporarily released, Black entered Angela’s Nashville dwelling on March 28, 1988.
Court records show that Black executed the family from point-blank range. Justia summarizes the findings below:
Investigation revealed the bodies of Angela and her nine year old daughter, Latoya, in the master bedroom. Angela, who was lying in the bed, had apparently been shot once in the top of the head as she slept and was rendered unconscious immediately and died within minutes. Dr. Charles Harlan, Chief Medical Examiner for Davidson County, testified that she was probably shot from a distance of six to twelve inches and that her gunshot wound was the type usually caused by a large caliber bullet.
Latoya’s body was found partially on the bed and partially off the bed, wedged between the bed and a chest of drawers. She had been shot once through the neck and chest. Blood on her pillow and a bullet hole in the bedding indicated she had been lying on the bed when shot. Dr. Harlan testified that she was shot from a distance of greater than twenty-four inches from the skin surface. The bullet path and type of shot indicated that death was not instantaneous but likely occurred within three to ten minutes after her being shot. Bullet fragments were recovered from her left lung. Both victims were under the bedcovers when they were shot.
The body of Lakeisha, age six, was found in the second bedroom lying facedown on the floor next to her bed. She had been shot twice, once in the chest, once in the pelvic area. Dr. Harlan testified that she had died from bleeding as a result of a gunshot wound to the chest. She was shot from a distance of six to twelve inches and died within five to thirty minutes after being shot. Abrasions on her arm indicated a bullet had grazed her as she sought to protect herself from the attacker. Bullet holes and blood stains on the bed indicated that she was lying in bed when shot and had moved from the bed to the floor after being shot. There were bloody finger marks down the rail running from the head of the bed to the foot of the bed.
But the headlines focused on the legal battle fought over the execution of Black, after a judge ruled in July that his cardioverter-defibrillator should be deactivated to avoid causing him prolonged pain when he received a lethal injection of pentobarbital.
On July 31, the Tennessee Supreme Court vacated a preliminary injunction that required the Tennessee Department of Corrections to deactivate Black’s cardioverter-defibrillator. Black’s attorneys filed requests for a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming, among other contentions, that Black was at risk of a “prolonged” and “torturous” death. The Supreme Court denied all the stay applications on August 4.
“This is hurting so bad,” Black moaned as he was dying, according to USA Today.
“The fact that he was able to raise his head several times and express pain tells you that the pentobarbital was not acting the way that state’s experts claim it acts,” Black’s attorney Kelley Henry stated, adding, “the state of Tennessee killed a gentle, kind, fragile, intellectually disabled man in a violation of the laws of our country simply because they could. No one in a position of power, certainly not the courts, was willing to stop them. What happened here was the result of pure, unbridled bloodlust and cowardice. It was the brutal and unchecked abuse of government power.”
“Henry had earlier unsuccessfully argued that Black shouldn’t be put to death due to his apparent intellectual disability,” the New York Post reported.
The victim’s family says Black never apologized for his murders, and will take them to the grave with him.
“His family is now going through the same thing we went through 37 years ago,” Clay’s sister, Linette Bell, said after the execution. “I can’t say I’m sorry because we never got an apology. He never apologized, and he never admitted it, even on his dying bed … He took it to his grave with him, and he knows he did it.”