Man Who Raped, Buried Teen Girl Alive Says 'I Invite Everyone to Islam' as Last Words Before Execution
A 49-year-old man who was executed Thursday in Indiana spoke of Islam shortly before his execution at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute.
Orlando Cordia Hall was the eighth federal inmate executed this year by lethal injection.
“I invite everyone to Islam,” Hall said, according to the Tribune-Star. “Thank you for giving me this opportunity for forgiveness. Thank everyone who’s here — my family and my loved ones. I love you.”
Hall also had one final message.
“I’m OK,” he said, according to the New York Post. “Take care of yourself. Tell my kids I love them.”
A marijuana trafficker convicted of kidnapping, raping a teen, then burying her alive was executed this week at an Indiana prison, becoming the 8th federal inmate to die this year.
Orlando Cordia Hall, 49, was put to death via lethal injection late Thursday. pic.twitter.com/slyMLobjyW— Dr. Thomas Hoke (@hoke_thomas) November 20, 2020
In a release posted on its website, the Department of Justice summarized the reason Hall was executed, noting that in September 1994, after a failed drug deal “Hall and his accomplices drove to the Arlington, Texas, home of a man they believed had stolen their money.”
“The man’s 16-year-old sister, Lisa Rene, refused to let them inside. Although Rene — an honor roll student with dreams of becoming a doctor — had no role in the drug transaction, Hall and his accomplices broke into the apartment and kidnapped her at gunpoint,” the release said.
“She was studying for a test and had her textbooks on the couch when these guys came knocking on the front door,” retired Arlington detective John Stanton Sr. said, according to NBC.
“It was one that I won’t ever forget,” Stanton said. “This one was particularly heinous.”
Over two days, she was taken to Arkansas, gang-raped, bludgeoned with a shovel and buried alive.
After the girl was repeatedly raped “Hall and his accomplices took her to a park where Hall and another accomplice had dug a grave that afternoon, but they could not find the grave site in the dark. The next morning, they returned to the park with Rene,” the release said,
“At the grave site, Hall placed a sheet over Rene’s head and hit her in the head with a shovel. Rene screamed and tried to run away, but the men tackled her and took turns beating her with the shovel. After soaking her with gasoline, they dragged her into the grave and buried her alive,” the release said.
Pearl Rene, the victim’s sister, issued a statement.
“Today marks the end of a very long and painful chapter in our lives. My family and I are very relieved that this is over. We have been dealing with this for 26 years and now we’re having to relive the tragic nightmare that our beloved Lisa went through.
“Ending this painful process will be a major goal for our family. This is only the end of the legal aftermath. The execution of Orlando Hall will never stop the suffering we continue to endure. Please pray for our family as well as his,” the statement said.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday had rejected a last-ditch effort to stop the execution.
Hall’s lawyers tried to say that Hall, who was black, did not get justice because the jurors in his case were white, according to The New York Times.
Prosecutor Paul Macaluso rejected that argument from Hall’s lawyers.
“They have to find some excuse of why a jury sentenced this man to the death penalty,” he said.
“We don’t need to come up with some sort of racial excuse for a jury to find that somebody who has violated the law and has caused someone’s death.”
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