Serial killers and true crime

Robert Gleason Jr has been executed in Virginia by electric chair for the murders of at least three people.

Gleason, 42, from Massachusetts, vowed to continue killing if the state did not execute him and said he deserved to die for his crimes.

 

It was the first execution in the US this year and the first time the electric chair has been used since 2010.

Virginia is one of the nine states where inmates can choose the method of death. Gleason wanted to die by electrocution because he believed the lethal injection would be painful and he could not see himself dying lying down.

 

“I can’t do that. I’d rather be sitting up,” he said.

 

The article goes on to discuss how even though the killer  gave away his right to appeal other people tried to stop the execution claiming he was insane. I can not understand why someone would do that. This guy was a threat even while in prison.

In 2009 he strangled his cellmate, 63-year-old Harvey Watson Jr, and spent 15 hours with his dead body before the murder was discovered. 

At the time, he said: “Someone needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is put me on death row.”

He went on to kill 26-year-old Aaron Cooper by strangling him through the wire fence that separated their cages in the recreation yard at the prison.

Gleason said he had killed dozens more but has refused to provide details other than that he has only ever murdered criminals.

I guess he thought he was some kind of  Dexter.

“I ain’t saying I’m a better person for killing criminals, but I’ve never killed innocent. I killed people that’s in the same lifestyle as me, and they know, hey, these things can happen.”

I am sure that the families of the men that he killed would agree. I also wonder how he judged innocent, what about prostitutes? There have been other killers that ‘justify’ their crimes by blaming the victims.

He was executed at the Greensville Correctional Centre. His last words were “pog mo thoin”, which is Irish Gaelic for “kiss my ass”, Larry Traylor, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections said.

 

Classy guy.