A Columbia County man who was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of his wife died last Saturday at Oregon State Penitentiary, nine years to the day after he joined the prison's death row.
Allen Gary Zweigart, Sr., 64, died at the prison infirmary, where he had been since Dec. 6, according to an Oregon Department of Corrections spokeswoman. The agency said he died of natural causes.
Zweigart, one of 37 inmates on Oregon's death row, had been sentenced to death after a jury found him guilty in 2004 of fatally shooting his wife, Hong Ha Zweigart, at their Warren home. Allen Zweigart, a meat-cutter at Safeway in St. Helens, had been having an extramarital affair with a co-worker, prosecutors said. He hired the co-worker's teenage nephew to stage a home-invasion robbery and kill his wife, they said, but the nephew couldn't go through with the killing. Zweigart then freed himself from his bonds and shot his wife, prosecutors said.
The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence in a 2008 decision.
Oregon has not executed an inmate since 1997. In November 2011, Gov. John Kitzhaber announced he would not allow any executions to occur as long as he is governor and issued a reprieve to halt the planned execution of twice-convicted murderer Gary Haugen.
Source: The Oregonian, January 9, 2014
