An Arizona prisoner scheduled to be executed subsequent month for killing 4 members of a household of their Phoenix residence over 30 years in the past has issued an announcement apologizing for the ache he’s induced.
In a handwritten be aware launched Thursday, Richard Djerf reiterated he wasn’t going to hunt aid from the state’s clemency board.
“If I can’t discover cause to spare my life, what cause would anybody else have?” he wrote.
“I hope my demise brings some measure of peace.”
The Arizona Legal professional Common’s Workplace, which sought the warrant for Djerf’s execution, declined to touch upon the assertion.
Djerf, 55, had pleaded responsible to 4 counts of homicide within the killings of Albert Luna Sr., his spouse Patricia and their 18-year-old daughter Rochelle and 5-year-old son Damien on Sept. 14, 1993.
A choose later sentenced Djerf to demise.
Djerf’s execution by deadly injection is scheduled for Oct. 17. It will be Arizona’s second use of the demise penalty this yr.
Prosecutors say Djerf blamed one other Luna member of the family, Albert Luna Jr., for an earlier theft of residence digital gadgets at his residence, grew to become obsessive about revenge and months later entered the house below a ruse through which he claimed to be delivering flowers.
Authorities say Djerf sexually assaulted Rochelle and slashed her throat; beat Albert Luna Sr. with an aluminum baseball bat earlier than stabbing and taking pictures him; and tied Patricia Luna and Damien to kitchen chairs earlier than fatally taking pictures them.
In his assertion launched Thursday, Djerf stated Albert Jr. was an harmless sufferer who got here residence to find what Djerf had completed to his household. “No a part of what I did to his household, or why, was ever his fault,” Djerf wrote.
The Related Press was unable to search out contact data for Luna by cellphone listings, analyzing case information and asking authorized representatives concerned within the courtroom case.
Arizona, which presently has 108 prisoners on demise row, final used the demise penalty in mid-March when it executed Aaron Brian Gunches within the 2002 killing of Ted Worth.
The state additionally carried out three executions in 2022 following a virtually eight-year hiatus introduced on by criticism {that a} 2014 execution was botched and due to difficulties acquiring medication for execution.
Within the 2014 execution, Joseph Wooden was injected with 15 doses of a two-drug mixture over two hours, main him to snort repeatedly and gasp a whole bunch of occasions earlier than he died.
