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Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

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Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

Massachusetts | Convicted Murderer Gary Lee Sampson Dead At 62

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Gary Lee Sampson, who was sentenced to the death penalty in connection with the murders of 2 Massachusetts men and a 3rd man in New Hampshire, has died in a prison facility.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons database, the 62-year-old Sampson died Tuesday.

Sampson was initially sentenced to death in 2003 for killing 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo and 69-year-old Philip McCloskey. 

The decision was later overturned by a judge after finding a juror lied about her background.

In 2017, a federal jury decided Sampson would receive the death penalty for Rizzo, but not McCloskey.

Sampson was also serving a separate life sentence fore killing Robert “Eli” Whitney in New Hampshire.

Prosecutors said Sampson tricked the carjack victims into thinking he would spare their lives but then stabbed them more than a dozen times, slit their throats and left them to die in the woods.

Source: boston.cbslocal.com, Staff, December 25, 2021


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Massachusetts, USA
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