Hannah Floyd of Starke wipes away
tears after hearing at a protest that the execution of John Blackwelder
was stayed Tuesday. She said she and Blackwelder had been corresponding
while he was on Death Row for the May 2000 murder of his cellmate
Raymond Wigley at Union Correctional Institution in Columbia County.
By LISE FISHER
Sun staff writer
John Blackwelder's execution was reset for 6 p.m. today.
STARKE - Claims that
another inmate is guilty in the case of a 2000 prison murder delayed
Tuesday's execution of inmate John Blackwelder.
Gov. Jeb Bush
temporarily halted Blackwelder's execution based on a letter from an
inmate to the state Attorney General's Office detailing a confession by
another prisoner to the killing of inmate Raymond Wigley.
Blackwelder's execution has been rescheduled for 6 p.m. today, pending
a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation of the claim.
"I understand what I am telling you is double hearsay and it was not
the person . . . who revealed or confessed to the crime," inmate
William Demler wrote in a letter dated May 22. "However, in light of
the circumstances and the immediacy of the situation . . . I felt an
obligation to notify the attorneys involved."
Demler, who works
in the law library at Union Correctional Institution, where Blackwelder
was moved after his murder conviction, said he didn't know Blackwelder
except to issue books to him in the library.
"I have nothing to
gain from telling you what I have learned," Demler wrote. "I was just
brought up to value life, regardless of how worthless that life may
seem to be."
No other information was released.
Blackwelder, 49, had been convicted of killing Wigley, 39, after
promising him a sexual encounter in his cell at Columbia Correctional
Institution. Instead, investigators said he strangled Wigley with a
string.
Wigley was convicted of the rape, torture and murder of
Adella Maria Simmons, 47, in 1983. In an interview Monday, Blackwelder
said he was sorry for killing Wigley but had to do it "to get what I
wanted" - a death sentence.
Blackwelder had been serving life
in prison for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in St. Lucie County
and said he had been wrongly convicted of the crime.
Blackwelder was not angry or upset after learning about the delay, said
Department of Corrections spokesman Sterling Ivey. "He actually
chuckled," Ivey said, and asked to visit with his sister in the
morning.
About 50 protestors against the death penalty
gathered across the street from the prison before the delay was
announced. A sign read, "25 Years of Blood on All Our Hands . . . When
the State Kills, You Kill." Protesters marked the sign with red
handprints.
"I'm praying that they're not going to kill him
at all," said Hannah Floyd with the Florida Death Row Advocacy Group.
But, she also said, "I just think it's horrible to have to put them
through this every time. He's sitting in there thinking this is it, and
then they have to postpone it. They're just playing politics."
"A person who's going to be executed has to go through a process to
make themselves ready for it. Now he's got to be on an emotional roller
coaster," said Abe Bonowitz, director of Floridians for Alternatives to
the Death Penalty. "I feel for him. I feel for the prison workers that
also have to gear up to be able to do this. It just shows one more part
of the failure of this death penalty system."
Blackwelder's
execution date originally had fallen on the 25th anniversary of the
execution of John Spenkelink, the first Florida inmate to be executed
after the state resumed executions on May 25, 1979.
