Killer dies in Virginia electric chair

JARRATT, Va. A man who murdered a family of four was put to death in Virginia’s electric chair last night, maintaining his innocence to the end.
Earl C. Bramblett, 61, was executed at 9:09 p.m. after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeals and Gov. Mark Warner denied his request for clemency.
Bramblett was only the third Virginia inmate to die in the electric chair since condemned prisoners were given the option of electrocution or lethal injection in 1995.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused yesterday afternoon to block the execution, although a stay was supported by three justices: John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They did not give a reason.
Bramblett was convicted in 1997 of killing Blaine and Teresa Hodges and their two young daughters.
Bramblett was led into the execution chamber at the Greensville Correctional Center at 8:54 p.m. and strapped into the oak electric chair built by inmates.
“I didn’t murder the Hodges family,” Bramblett said firmly in his final statement. “I’ve never murdered anybody. I’m going to my death with a clear conscience.
“I am going to my death having had a great life because of my two great sons,” who visited Bramblett earlier in the day along with his ex-wife.
A Department of Corrections official then turned a key switch in the wall behind the electric chair, activating the system.
An executioner sitting behind a one-way glass immediately pressed a button labeled “execute” and 1,800 volts surged through Bramblett’s body, causing him to go rigid and throwing him against the back of the chair.
Bramblett’s lawyers unsuccessfully filed challenges yesterday in the Virginia Supreme Court and Roanoke federal court to the Virginia law that permits electrocution and gives condemned inmates the choice between the electric chair and lethal injection.
“We believe it is barbaric,” attorney Jennifer Givens said.
She said Bramblett’s lawyers were aware March 28 that their client had chosen electrocution but did not get around to filing the challenges until yesterday because they were busy with the appeal to the Supreme Court and the clemency request to Mr. Warner.
Bramblett gave the lawyers permission to challenge the Virginia law, but “he has not changed his mind on the method of execution,” Miss Givens said.
Bramblett was the first inmate executed in Virginia this year.
Bramblett told the Associated Press on Tuesday that he chose the electric chair to protest what he considers his wrongful conviction.
“I’m not going to lay down on a gurney and have them stick a needle in my arm and make it look like an antiseptic execution taking place as a result of a fair trial,” Bramblett said in a telephone interview from the Greensville prison.
Blaine Hodges, 41, and his daughters, Winter, 11, and Anah, 3, were each shot once in the head and Teresa Hodges, 37, was strangled. They were found in their burning Vinton home on Aug. 29, 1994.
Authorities immediately suspected Bramblett, a family friend who had been living with the Hodgeses, after questioning him and discovering he knew things about the crime scene that had previously not been reported, Roanoke County Commonwealth’s Attorney Randy Leach said.
Prosecutors also tied Bramblett to the scene using .22-caliber bullet casings they said matched cartridges found in his truck and pubic hair belonging to Bramblett that was found in the girls’ bed.
Prosecutors theorized that Bramblett murdered the family because he was sexually obsessed with Winter, and that Mr. Hodges was using the girl to entrap him in a sex crime.
But Bramblett said all the circumstantial evidence used against him had either been planted or fabricated.
He said his pubic hair sample was taken before authorities located the hair on the girls’ bed, and that his tape recordings had been altered to give the impression he was attracted to Winter.
Bramblett’s attorneys said in their clemency petition that the recanted testimony of a jailhouse snitch who linked Bramblett to the murders also should be enough to warrant a new trial.