ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602260035
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN QUENTIN, CALIF.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Relatives of some of ``Freeway Killer'' William George Bonin's victims raised a champagne toast Friday after he became California's first convict to be executed by injection.
``He got the easy way out, not like the guys he killed,'' said Steve Kendrick, 37. Kendrick's brother, Darin, was 19 when Bonin kidnapped him from his job at a supermarket, strangled him and jammed an ice pick into his ear.
Bonin was convicted of murdering 14 boys and young men in 1979 and 1980 and dumping their nude, mutilated bodies along highways in Southern California. His victims, ages 12 to 19, were sexually abused, tortured and, except for one, strangled. The exception was stabbed about 70 times.
Bonin was executed in the same acid-green gas chamber in which 192 men and four women have been put to death by cyanide since 1938.
LENGTH: Short : 28 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB