Update: Martin Link, 47, died by lethal injection at 12:15 a.m. today. His last meal consisted of sausage and pepperoni pizza, lasagna, garlic bread, a chef's salad, New-York-style cheesecake, a strawberry shake and Dr. Pepper, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.
His last statement: "The state says killing is wrong, so why do they do it? For revenge. Where is the closure? There is none. The death penalty is an act of revenge. Many men sit on death row, some innocent, some not. So what happens when a man is executed and it's later learned he was, in fact, innocent? He can't be brought back."
An interesting, if morbid, note: Link had attempted suicide in 2008 by slashing his wrists and spent the last portion of his sentence in solitary confinement, the Columbia Missourian reported yesterday.
Original story (February 8): At 12:01 a.m. Wednesday,
Missouri death-row inmate Martin Link is scheduled
to die via lethal injection. Despite a nationwide shortage of a
crucial drug used in executions, the state's Department of Corrections
has given assurance that it has enough sodium thiopental to get Link
good and dead.
Link was found guilty in the 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder of Elissa
Self, an 11-year-old St. Louis girl.
Link's will be the
first execution in Missouri in two years. Inmate Richard Clay was
to have the honor, but Gov. Jay Nixon commuted
his sentence to life in prison without parole last month.
States are running out of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic, because the drug's manufacturer, Hospira Inc., moved its manufacturing to Italy. Italian officials aren't too keen on aiding capital punishment in the United States by supplying the drug, according to a statement released by Hospira Inc. last month.
Awww. The Italians think that they can stop this country's state-sponsored death machine! That's cute. Executions have been delayed in California, Arkansas, Tennessee and
Maryland because of the sodium thiopental shortage. Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, they've switched to killing people with a drug used to euthanize dogs and cats.
For now, the spokesman for Missouri's DOC says there is plenty of sodium thiopental left for Link's date with the needle. Lucky him.
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Ur mother-in-law, my friend! I hope this does help her heal, knowing that he is gone.
Zerox it is my fervent hope that you never have the misfortune to be the victim of a violent crime or have to bury and mourn a victim of violent crime. The death penalty is not and never has been about reducing crime. It is about the individual being held accountable and paying the ultimate price for the most henious and despicable crimes that he commits. He stole the life of an innocent and before doing so destroyed the purity and innocence of her childhood. Before you climb up on your holier than thou pulpit, spare a thought for the terror and pain suffered by a little girl at the hands of a grown man. Ask yourself this - what if she were your daughter? Don't condescend to judge another until you have walked a day in their shoes. On behalf of all victims of violent crime and on behalf of mothers around the world of beautiful and innocent little girls, I thank Almighty God that this animal can never hurt, rape and murder another little girl.
In a 2009 national survey, 500 police chiefs ranked the death penalty as the least effective means to reduce violent crime, the least efficient use of taxpayer dollars. They identified increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse and creating more jobs as much more effective measures.
no, you are wrong. If an animal in the wild is rabid, it gets put down. I would consider someone that rapes and murders an 11 year old girl a "rabid human". So put that piece of shit down. Kill the fucker.
@Erogers: Check your facts- Belarus is the only European country that still practices the death penalty, and if that's what we aspire to then we have major problems.
@Xerox: If you think that the writer or the Pitch is some sort of cheerleader for the 'state sponsored death machine,' recommend you bone up on your reading comprehension.
Funny you should say that Europeans have complete contempt for us when our capital punishment laws date back to the begining of the new world. They are taken directly from British rule.
We allow these criminals to have many appeals and use our tax money to do it. In Europe if you are sentenced to death you get one appeal and the whole process takes six weeks.
It is cheaper to keep them tthen to put them to death but some just need to get what they gave. This girl did not deserve to die the way she did and he did not deserve to live another 20 years after the fact. Her parents lost their child and yet no matter where he was he was still breathing.
Think about all sides before you judge someone.
what you guys don't understand is that murder is murder. killing is killing. just because it comes out of a court decision doesnt't make a difference.
you also don't get it that europeans have complete contempt for american justice - with all your prisoners (nearly 2 million) you're right up there with Iran, North Korea and China.
the writer of this blog is the kind of dumb hick that the usa specializes in producing : probably an alcoholic, probably beats his wife, obese and didnt go to college. Thinks the usa is the best country on earth, the 'free-est', thinks GM makes the best damn cars on earth, buys his groceries fr0m Walmart, clothes from K-Mart and fantasizes about beating up 'Moose-lims' on 24. Very loud but would piss himself like a kid if he had to go to Afghanistan.
And why exactly should anyone care what chemical we use to kill this piece of excrement?
Surely, he didn't care when he did what he did to an innocent child.
I vote for Draino. Lots of it for sale at Wal-Mart.
The only problem I have with the Death penalty is the amount of time it takes to carry out the sentence. Not this guy but a person could change and be trully remorseful after 20 years. how many people are the same at 47 as they were at 27, If they are gonna do do it quick and without a shadow of doubt if they are guilty they are guilty.
Sounds like he'd be a good candidate for some of that animal anesthetic.
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