ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 24, 1996 TAG: 9601240060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: JARRATT
Richard Townes Jr., who prosecutors said killed a convenience store clerk during a robbery so she could not identify him, was executed Tuesday night by lethal injection.
Townes, 45, was convicted of the April 14, 1985, execution-style killing of Virginia Goebel, a 32-year-old mother of two from Virginia Beach.
He was pronounced dead at 9:25 p.m., Greensville Correctional Center Warden John Jabe said.
There was a 22-minute delay because medical personnel were unable to find a large enough vein in which to put the IV. It was finally inserted in a vein on the top of Townes' right foot.
Townes whispered something unintelligible before the lethal injection was administered.
During the sentencing phase of his 1986 trial, Townes, who represented himself, offered no mitigating evidence, questioned no witnesses and did not address the jury.
The prosecution, in establishing Townes' future danger to society, told the jury of his criminal history of 29 felonies, including 22 bad-check charges. In addition, a cab driver testified that Townes and another man held him hostage for six hours in 1976 before shooting him four times in the back.
Jurors asked Virginia Beach Circuit Judge Austin Owen whether Townes would be eligible for parole if sentenced to life in prison. At the time, state law barred the judge from giving them an answer. Townes was not eligible for parole, which he could have told the jury during the sentencing phase. He did not. |- Associated Press
Townes represented himself after dismissing two court-appointed lawyers in a protest over the low pay given to lawyers who represent indigent clients.
Last weekend, two of the jurors who convicted Townes signed affidavits that said they wouldn't have voted for the death penalty if they'd known Townes could never be released on parole, according to David Wadyka, one of Townes' lawyers.
```We were all worried that he might one day get out of prison on parole if he got a life sentence,''' Wadyka quoted one affidavit as saying.
Wadyka said another appeal was filed Tuesday with the Virginia Supreme Court based on the juror statements. That appeal was turned down.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected three emergency requests aimed at postponing the execution. The court also turned down two formal appeals filed on Townes' behalf.
During Townes' trial, prosecutor Albert Alberi told the jury Townes killed Goebel during a robbery to prevent his identification. She was shot once in the head with a .45-caliber weapon. Approximately $186 was taken in the robbery.
``There is a terrible hardness in me that says fry him,'' Virginia B. Aygarn, Goebel's mother, said Monday. ``He had no right to kill her.
``... She was just a poor woman up there trying to earn a living. And he just got her down on the floor and shot her in the head,'' she said.
- Associated Press
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