By Dan Seddon
Copyright unilad
Death row inmate Richard Djerf has handwritten a chilling message as he awaits execution in Arizona next month.
Djerf pleaded guilty to four counts of murder following the 1993 deaths of Albert Luna Sr, his wife Patricia and their children Rochelle, 18, and Damien, five.
Per the Independent, prosecutors claim Djerf blamed a separate member of the Luna family for what went down – Albert Luna Jr allegedly stole items from his flat, and so the future killer became hellbent on revenge and entered the Luna home under the pretence of delivering flowers.
Djerf is said to have sexually assaulted Rochelle before slitting her throat; beat Albert Sr with a metal baseball bat before stabbing and shooting him, and then tied the two children to kitchen chairs before fatally shooting them both.
Ahead of his execution by lethal injection, which is scheduled for October 17, the 55-year-old released a note this week apologising for all the pain he’d caused.
“If I can’t find reason to spare my life, what reason would anyone else have?” it read. “I hope my death brings some measure of peace.”
Djerf’s note also highlighted how Albert Jr was an innocent victim in the case.
“No part of what I did to his family, or why, was ever his fault,” the murderer added.
Djerf was sentenced to death in 1996, meaning he’s spent almost three decades mulling over his heinous crimes.
The last prisoner to be euthanised in Arizona was Aaron Brian Gunches back in March of this year, while its current death row inmate count lands at 108.
In other death row news, David Joseph Pittman finally met his maker in Florida a couple of days ago, having been sentenced to death in the early 1990s over the murders of his ex-wife and her parents.
He maintained his innocence all the way to end, declaring just moments before the lethal drugs were pumped into his system: “I know you all came to watch an innocent man be murdered by the State of Florida. I am innocent. I didn’t kill anybody. That’s it.”
Prior to his execution, Pittman’s legal team argued that he was too intellectually disabled to be executed under the US Constitution.
“The State of Florida runs the imminent risk of executing an intellectually disabled person, contrary to the provisions of the Eighth Amendment,” his attorneys wrote, as per USA Today.
The case was centred on the fact that Pittman’s IQ was reportedly scored at 70, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, means he may have been intellectually disabled.
