Virginia death-row inmate scheduled to be electrocuted

If carried out, next week's scheduled execution of Larry Bill Elliott will be by electrocution, the option he selected before his Oct. 5 execution date, which was delayed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

"The attorney general's office has advised us that no new choice is to be given. Elliott's choice remains electrocution," said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Virginia death-row inmates have been able to choose between lethal injection or electrocution since Jan. 1, 1995. Since then, the state has administered 76 lethal injections and four electrocutions.

Traylor said that if Elliott changes his mind, he can request lethal injection and the request would be forwarded to the governor's office. However, a Kaine spokesman said yesterday that Elliott made his choice more than 15 days before his scheduled execution as required by state law.

Yesterday, Elliott filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, and he has a clemency petition pending before Kaine.

Elliott, a former Army intelligence officer from Hanover, Md., turned 60 yesterday and is the oldest of Virginia's 15 death-row inmates.

He was sentenced to die for the Jan. 2, 2001, capital murder of Dana Thrall, 25. Thrall was pistol-whipped and shot once in the right hand and three times in the head in her Dale City town house.

Elliott also was convicted and sentenced to life for the 1st-degree murder of Robert Finch, 30, who lived with Thrall. Finch was shot in the head, chest and once in the back.

Elliott saw Finch as a romantic threat to his "sugar-daddy" relationship with a former stripper he met through a Web site. Elliott was set to be executed in October but, in September, Kaine delayed the execution until Nov. 17.

At the time, Kaine noted that Elliott claimed he was innocent and that "due to the complicated nature of this case," more time was needed to consider his clemency request.

The murder weapon never was found, but tests showed the bullets that killed Thrall and Finch were fired by the same weapon. Among other things, Elliott's DNA profile was identified in blood discovered on the inside of the town house's privacy fence gate.

Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch, Nov. 15, 2009

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