Post by CCADP on Aug 25, 2005 9:55:45 GMT -5
Board rejects clemency for killer----Baird says unseen forces made him
murder his parents and pregnant wife
Execution would be 4th this year
3 Indiana inmates have been executed this year -- the most in 1 year since
the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.
On Aug. 31, barring a reprieve, Arthur P. Baird II will be the 4th inmate
to die by chemical injection at the State Prison in Michigan City. Baird,
59, killed his parents, wife and unborn child in 1985.
Gregory Scott Johnson was executed May 25; Bill J. Benefiel on April 21;
and Donald Ray Wallace on March 10.
Alan Matheney, who beat his former wife to death in 1989 while out of
prison on a brief furlough, is the next inmate scheduled to die, but the
Indiana Supreme Court has not set an execution date.
The Indiana Parole Board voted 3-1 Wednesday against clemency for a
convicted murderer who claims unseen forces took over his body and made
him kill 20 years ago.
Arthur P. Baird II, who killed his parents and pregnant wife in 1985 in
Montgomery County, in west-central Indiana, is scheduled to die at
midnight Wednesday. The governor still could step in, and appeals of the
sentence are pending.
"Arthur Baird has played an elaborate game of deceit and misrepresentation
that has served to delay the imposition of the death penalty for nearly
two decades," said board member Thor R. Miller. "This is nothing more than
a brutally cruel man."
Miller joined Valerie J. Parker and Raymond W. Rizzo in voting against
clemency. Randall P. Gentry asked Gov. Mitch Daniels to commute Baird's
sentence to life in prison without parole.
Jane Jankowski, Daniels' spokeswoman, said he has Baird's records and is
reviewing the case. Since taking office in January, he has not blocked any
execution.
Baird, 59, is psychotic, delusional and obsessive, defense lawyers say.
"One of the very sad things about (the Parole Board's) recommendation is
that it evidences a lack of understanding of mental illness," defense
attorney Jessie Cook said.
Gentry, the only Parole Board member appointed by Daniels, said Baird's
crimes were clearly rooted in mental illness.
"I find no benefit in carrying out the death penalty on a person with
mental impairment, when the contribution of that mental impairment played
a potential role as large as it did in this case," Gentry said.
In the months before the murders, Baird was under the belief that the
government was going to pay him $1 million for helping to solve the
national debt. He had convinced his family and secured a loan to buy a
farm worth more than $500,000, his attorneys say.
On Sept. 6, 1985, Baird strangled his wife, Nadine, who was seven months
pregnant, in their rural Montgomery County mobile home. The next day, he
visited his parents, got a haircut from his mother, then stabbed Arthur
and Kathryn Baird to death.
Seven mental health professionals examined Baird and agreed his mental
problems influenced his actions. 5 believe mental illness made him kill.
"One minute everything's fine, we're loving each other and everything,"
Baird told the Parole Board during a hearing Friday at the State Prison in
Michigan City.
"The next minute it felt like I was being held, my hands were being
manipulated. I knew what was happening, I didn't want it to be happening."
Deputy Attorney General Steve Creason said jurors knew of Baird's mental
illness in 1987 when they recommended the death penalty for the murders of
his parents. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison for killing his wife.
"He is still trying to cover up and avoid responsibility in his head and
in public about what his crimes were," Creason said.
(source: Indianapolis Star)