Ohio | Execution Vacated for Elwood Jones Ahead of December 6, 2023

Elwood Hubert Jones was scheduled to be executed at 10 am local time, on Wednesday, December 6, 2023. His execution date has been vacated pending retrial. 71-year-old Elwood was convicted of murdering 67-year-old Rhoda Nathan in the Embassy Suites Hotel in Blue Ash, Ohio. Elwood spent 26 years on Ohio’s death row before being released on bond, pending a new trial.

At the time of the murder, Elwood Jones was employed by Embassy Suites Hotel in Blue Ash, Ohio.

On September 2, 1994, Elaine Schub, Joe Kaplan, and Rhoda Nathan, all checked into a room at the Embassy Suites Hotel. They had come to town to celebrate a bar mitzvah. Elaine and Joe got up early the following day to go for a complimentary breakfast in a banquet room, however, Rhoda stayed in the hotel room for some more sleep. Joe took the only room key for the group and made sure the door was locked before leaving the room around 7:28 am.

40 minutes later Joe and Elaine returned to the room. Rhoda’s nude body was lying on the floor. Further investigation revealed that she had suffered severe head trauma. Elaine, who had left her purse in the room during breakfast, discovered that money was missing from her wallet. Elaine also notices that Rhoda was missing a pendent necklace that she always wore. It was a one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry made by Rhoda’s late husband.

Rhoda was pronounced dead later that day and police quickly began investigating, narrowing down their suspects to 3 hotel workers who had prior criminal histories. 2 of the suspects were cleared through further investigation. Elwood “Butch” Jones, was the 3rd suspect identified by the police. Further investigation revealed that Jones had injured his hand on the day of Rhoda’s murder, later filing for worker’s compensation benefits. After subpoenaing and receiving medical records, the police spoke to a physician who treated Jones. The physician confirmed that Jones’ hand injury appeared to be a “fist-to-mouth,” type injury.

Police went to the home of Earlene Metcalfe, Jones’ girlfriend, who was also listed as a witness to the hand injury. Both agreed to be questioned by the police. Once at the station, Jones was read his Miranda rights and signed a waiver form. Jones confirmed that he and Earlene arrived at work on September 3, around 5 am. Upon arriving, Jones signed out a hotel master key and began helping his girlfriend. Around 6 am, Jones went to the second floor of the hotel to clean banquet rooms. Jones claimed that around that time he slipped on some steps outside, cutting his left hand, while taking out some trash.

Jones forcefully claimed that he spent from 6:30 am to 8 am that day working the complimentary breakfast area. Jones also denied entering room 237 that day. When police asked if he was involved in the murder, Jones asked to speak to an attorney. Meanwhile, Earlene agreed to have police search her residence. Police also obtained a warrant to search the vehicle owned by Jones. Inside a toolbox in Jones’ car, police found the unique pendant that belonged to Rhoda and a master key to the hotel. The evidence was sent for testing and after the results came back, police arrested Jones.

Jones was charged and convicted of the murder of Rhoda Nathan, and sentenced to death. Jones had previously received at least 1 other execution date of April 21, 2021. That execution was delayed to December 6, 2023, due to ongoing problems obtaining execution drugs in the state of Ohio.

Elwood Jones has always maintained his innocence of the crime that sent him to death row. In 2022, Elwood was granted a new trial. At a hearing to determine if Elwood should be granted a new trial, his attorney presented 4,000 pages of evidence that was withheld by prosecutors during his initial trial. Additionally, in the years since the crime, another person has confessed to carrying out the murder, however, that person’s confession is considered unreliable due to mental illness. A guest staying at the hotel the morning of Rhonda’s murder has also come forward and testified that they saw a man with a light complexion sprinting from the scene of the crime that morning. Elwood has a dark complexion.

After being granted a new trial, Elwood has been released from prison on an unsecured bond, with an electronic monitoring device. He must report bi-weekly to the Hamilton Country Probation Department for random drug screens. Hamilton County prosecutors have opposed his release. His trial is currently scheduled to occur in 2024.

Source: theforgivenessfoundation.org, Staff, November 29, 2023

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Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

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