MAIL BOMB KILLER, 83, EXECUTED
US inmate is oldest to get lethal injection
AN 83-YEAR-OLD man who murdered a judge with a mail bomb has been executed.
Walter Leroy Moody Jr is the oldest prisoner put to death in the US since capital punishment was reinstated in the 1970s.
He had a lethal injection at the Alabama prison at Atmore. Moody made no last statement and did not respond when asked if he had any last words.
Judge Robert S Vance – a member of the Atlantabased 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals – was in his kitchen in Mountain Brook, Alabama, on December 16, 1989, when he opened a package. The explosion ripped through the home, killing Vance and severely injuring his wife.
Prosecutors said Moody, who had attended law school, had a grudge against the legal system because the 11th Circuit refused to overturn a 1972 pipe-bomb possession conviction that prevented him from practising law.
At his 1996 trial, Moody was described as a meticulous coward who committed murder by mail because of his obsession with getting revenge.
Authorities said he mailed out a total of four package bombs in December 1989. A device linked to Moody killed Robert E Robinson, a black civil rights lawyer from Savannah, Georgia.
Two other mail bombs were later intercepted.
Moody had always maintained his innocence and recently wrote a letter to his victim’s son – Robert Vance Jr, also a judge – claiming he was the victim of a government conspiracy.
Vance Jr said he put the letter in the bin.