Leslie Dale Martin (1967 - 2002)

On June 20, 1991, Martin and Michael Roland went to the 12th Street Lounge in Lake Charles at about 11:00 p.m., after playing pool and drinking beer for about two hours. The victim, a college student and part-time employee at a pizza outlet, also went to the lounge between 11:00 p.m. and midnight with some […]

Jason Massey (1973 - 2001)

Jason Massey In July 1993, James King was awakened early one morning by the sound of a car pulling up to his house, honking its horn twice, and driving away. A little later, when the car came by again, King looked out his window and observed a tan car turn off its headlights and park […]

Royce Kendall (1934 - 1998)

Royce Kendall Culled from the album Let the Music Play, both father and daughter were drawn to the song from the start. As Royce later recalled: “We’d only played the thing once, and we remembered it. That’s a good sign . . . that’s the reason we cut it.” The song was originally the B-side […]

Charlie Waller (1935 - 2004)

Charlie Waller Founder and leader of the Country Gentlemen, died Wednesday (Aug. 18) of an apparent heart attack in the garden of his home in Gordonsville, Va. He was 69. Although Waller had been ailing the past several years, he and his group have maintained a busy concert schedule and were preparing to go on […]

Vernon Dalhart (1883 - 1948)

Vernon Dalhart Vernon Dalhart came to country music from outside the tradition, becoming a national star in the years just before more indigenous kinds of country music found their place in the machinery of the music industry. A 1924 recording by Dalhart became country music’s first million-selling record; pairing a train song (“Wreck of the […]

Alan Matheney (1950 - 2005)

Alan Lehman Matheney (6 November 1950 – 28 September 2005) was an American convicted of beating to death his ex-wife, Lisa Bianco, with a .410 bore shotgun, while on an eight-hour release from prison on 4 March 1989. At the time he was serving a sentence at Pendleton Correctional Facility for battery and confinement of […]

Steven Van McHone (1970 - 2005)

Steven McHone’s stepbrother Wesley Adams Jr. and his wife Wendy were visiting Wesley Adams Sr. and his wife, Mildred. Just after midnight on June 3, McHone was heard arguing with the couple by Wesley Jr. and Wendy, who were in bed. Mildred Adams entered their room and asked if they had moved a handgun that […]

Scott Andrew Mink (1963 - 2004)

Scott Andrew Mink (October 13, 1963 – July 20, 2004) was executed by the State of Ohio. A drug addict and alcoholic, he had been sentenced to die on June 29, 2001, for beating his 79-year-old father and 72-year-old mother to death with a hammer.  The crimes occurred on September 19, 2000, when Mink, angry […]

Eric Nance (1960 - 2005)

On October 11, 1993, 18-year-old Julie Heath was driving on U.S. Highway 270 between Malvern and Hot Springs, Arkansas to visit her boyfriend in Hot Springs. Nance stated that he stopped to help Heath after her car broke down and offered her a ride to Malvern. The prosecution said that Nance then raped and murdered […]

Sara Dougherty Carter (1898 - 1979)

Sara Dougherty Carter The most influential group in country music history, the Carter Family switched the emphasis from hillbilly instrumentals to vocals, made scores of their songs part of the standard country music canon, and made a style of guitar playing, “Carter picking,” the dominant technique for decades. Along with Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family […]

Jay Wesley Neill (1965 - 2002)

In 1983, Neill joined the United States Army. He met Robert Grady Johnson in February 1984 at a bar and became romantically involved. Neill was discharged in the summer of 1984 after disclosing that he was homosexual and quickly began having financial difficulties.  Neill and Johnson shared an apartment in Lawton, Oklahoma and a joint […]

Rose Maddox (1925 - 1998)

Rose Maddox  April 15, 1998 –  Ashland, Or.   Rose Maddox, a flamboyant country music pioneer who earned a Grammy nomination late in life for her autobiographical “$35 and a Dream,” has died at 71. Maddox was born Roselea Arbana Maddox, December 15,  1925, near Boaz, Alabama and died of kidney failure Wednesday April 15, 1998 […]

Uncle Dave Macon (1870 - 1952)

Uncle Dave Macon Born David Harrison Macon in Smartt Station in middle Tennessee’s Warren County, he was the son of a Confederate officer who owned a large farm. Macon heard the folk music of the area when he was young, but he was also a product of the urban South: after the family moved to […]

Max Duane Barnes (1936 - 2004)

Max Duane Barnes Max D. Barnes, the co-writer of such hits as “Chiseled in Stone,” “Look at Us” and “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” died early Sunday (Jan. 11) of pneumonia at Baptist Hospital in Nashville. He was 67. During his nearly 40 years as a professional writer, Barnes saw his songs recorded by George […]

Dusty Rhodes (1945 - 2015)

Dusty Rhodes Known worldwide as “The American Dream,” Rhodes (real name Virgil Runnels Jr.) spent several decades as a main-event attraction in pro wrestling, becoming a major influence in terms of his charisma and his ability to give captivating and entertaining interviews. Rhodes was also a major influence as a booker and had recently spent […]

Jim Ed Brown (1934 - 2015)

Jim Ed Brown Jim Ed Brown, a longtime Grand Ole Opry member who had solo and group hits and was a prominent figure on country music television shows, died Thursday. He was 81. Brown died of cancer at Williamson Medical Center in Franklin, Tennessee, according to a news release from Webster Public Relations. He will […]

William Dillard Powell (1946 - 2005)

Mary Black Gladden was an employee of The Pantry on Charles Road in Shelby, North Carolina. She was killed on October 31, 1991, while on duty at The Pantry. On that day between 3:15 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., Scott Truelove bought $5 worth of gasoline at The Pantry. Later he would state that while paying […]

Michael Wayne Richard (1959 - 2007)

Michael Wayne Richard (August 24, 1959 – September 25, 2007) was convicted of rape and murder whose execution gained notoriety due to controversies regarding procedural problems related to the timing of the execution. Richard admitted he was involved in the murder and offered to help find the murder weapon. Police found the weapon and testing […]

Johnny Leartice Robinson (1952 - 2004)

Johnny Leartice Robinson (25 July 1952 – 4 February 2004) was executed by the State of Florida for the 1985 murder of Beverly St. George.  Robinson had faced several criminal charges before being arrested for murder; he was convicted of several previous rapes and was on parole for a rape conviction in Maryland at the […]

Danny Rolling (1954 - 2006)

Rolling was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He had a difficult upbringing and the idea that he was an unwanted child was reinforced by his father, James Rolling, from birth. James was a Shreveport police officer who abused him; his mother, Claudia; and later, his brother, Kevin. In one incident, Danny’s mother went to the hospital […]

Michael Bruce Ross (1959 - 2005)

Ross was born in Putnam, Connecticut on July 26, 1959 to Patricia Hilda Laine and Dan Graeme Ross. The oldest of four children, having two younger sisters and a younger brother, he grew up on a chicken farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut. Ross’s home life was extremely dysfunctional; his mother, who had abandoned the family at […]

Mark Dean Schwab (1968 - 2008)

Schwab was released from prison on March 4, 1991, after serving three years of an eight-year sentence for the aggravated rape of a 13-year-old boy committed in 1987. The rest of his sentence was commuted and he was placed on 15 years of probation.  A month later, Cocoa resident Junny Rios-Martinez, Jr., went missing. Schwab […]

Jay D. Scott (1952 - 2001)

Jay D. Scott (August 21, 1952 – June 14, 2001) was executed by the U.S. state of Ohio for the 1983 murder of a delicatessen owner in Cleveland. He was the second man put to death by Ohio since it reinstated the death penalty in 1981.  On May 6, 1983, Vinnie M. Price, owner and […]

Tommy Lynn Sells (1964 - 2014)

Sells and his twin sister, Tammy Jean, contracted meningitis when they were 18 months old; Tammy died from the illness. Shortly thereafter, Sells was sent to live with his aunt, Bonnie Woodall, in Holcomb, Missouri, where he lived until he was five years old. When Sells was eight, he began spending time with a man […]

Brian Steckel (1968 - 2005)

On September 2, 1994, Steckel knocked on Long’s door and asked if he could use her telephone. He then unplugged the telephone and demanded sex from her. After she refused, he threw her onto a couch and attempted to strangle her with some pantyhose. The pantyhose broke, so he continued his attack with a sock. […]

Shannon Thomas (1971 - 2005)

Thomas and Keith Bernard Clay’s intention on Christmas Eve was to rob the two children’s father, Roberto Rios, a small-time marijuana and cocaine dealer, of his drugs and money. In the early afternoon Rios was duct taped to a chair, severely beaten, tortured with a pair of shears and shot twice in the head and […]

Stephen Vrabel (1956 - 2004)

Vrabel and Susan Clemente were an unmarried couple living together with their daughter, Lisa Clemente, in a Struthers, Ohio apartment that the family rented from Susan’s sister and brother-in-law. On March 3, 1989, Vrabel went into the Miller Rod and Gun Store in Youngstown to purchase a gun. He selected a gun but when asked […]

Donald Ray Wallace (1957 - 2005)

On January 14, 1980, Indiana State Trooper Thomas Snyder was called to the Evansville home of Ralph Hendricks as it had been reportedly burglarized. Snyder went to the home of Patrick and Theresa Gilligan, which was next door to Hendricks’s house, to inquire whether the Gilligans might have seen or heard anything unusual. Snyder, discovering […]

Stanley Williams (1953 - 2005)

Stanley Williams was born December 29, 1953 in Shreveport, Louisiana to a 17-year old mother. His father abandoned the family when Williams was just a year old. In 1959, at the age of six, Williams moved with his mother from Rayville, Louisiana to Los Angeles, California by a Greyhound Lines bus. His mother moved into […]

Willie Williams (1956 - 2005)

William James “Flip” Williams, Jr. (November 9, 1956 – October 25, 2005) was a mass murderer executed by lethal injection. He was convicted of the September 2, 1991 murders of three rival drug dealers and a visitor to their Youngstown, Ohio home.  Williams had returned to the neighborhood after a long absence to find that […]