Death Penalty Stories.
Donald Dillbeck
Note: The following is from a Tampa Bay Times Column by By Bishop Angel Marcial, president of the Florida Fellowship of Hispanic Councils & Evangelical Institutions and Bishop Derrick L. McRae, president of the African American Council of Christian Clergy. It was published on February 22, 2023.
Dillbeck was born with permanent brain damage, a result of his mother’s extreme abuse of alcohol while pregnant with him. As a young child, he endured unimaginable sexual abuse from his mother, who also practiced prostitution in front of her children, regularly withheld food from them and used knives and extension cords to beat them.
When Dillbeck was 4, he and his sister were put into foster care, where they continued to experience physical violence. Later he was separated from his sister, the only person who had shown him love. He was eventually adopted by the Dillbecks, and as a young teen, he began to abuse drugs and alcohol. He wasn’t provided with mental health counseling or substance abuse treatment.
At age 15, Dillbeck was asleep in a stolen car when he was awakened by a Lee County sheriff’s deputy. Panicking, he ran, and was quickly caught. A struggle ensued and he pulled the gun from Deputy Lee Dwight Lynn Halls’ holster, firing two fatal shots. He was quickly charged as an adult and, with no investigation into his life, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison — a sentence that would be unconstitutional for a 15-year-old today.
Dillbeck was sent to one of Florida’s most violent adult prisons, where he was beaten and raped on several occasions. Despite persistent symptoms of mental illness, he did not receive psychological treatment. In 1990, he fled from a food catering job he had while incarcerated and, on the run, he committed the tragic murder of Faye Vann, for which he is facing execution.
During Dillbeck’s death penalty trial, four members of the jury took into account the circumstances of his horrific childhood and voted to spare his life. Today, no state in the country would permit a death sentence based on a 8-4 vote, but at the time, Florida did not require a unanimous jury and he was sentenced to death.
Since the original trial, Dillbeck has been diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposure, which requires seven significant factors to be present, including behavioral and adaptive impairments. Dillbeck’s diagnosis is not in dispute but has never been considered by a jury.
Louis Gaskin
Note: The following letter to Governor DeSantis was delivered on behalf of the Fraternidad de Concilios y Entidades Evangélicas (FRACEEV) on April 11.
Dear Governor DeSantis and the Florida Board of Executive Clemency,
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, from the Fraternidad de Concilios y Entidades Evangélicas (FRACEEV). FRACEEV represents the Florida fellowship of Hispanic bishops and evangelical organizational leaders of more than 2,500 churches and nonprofit faith institutions throughout the State of Florida.
As Christian leaders, we believe Jesus, through his suffering and death, offered redemption for all of us, guiding us to eternal life with God. This belief challenges us, especially as we just marked Jesus’ glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday, to show mercy and compassion for each other. That is why we are writing today, to appeal for the life of one of God’s children, Louis Gaskin, who faces execution on April 12.
Louis was born into poverty, neglect and abuse. His father had no contact with him, and his troubled 16 year-old mother didn’t want him and couldn’t raise him. This left Louis to grow up in the home of his great-grandparents, who were poor and illiterate. They beat young Louis, confined him to their house, and allowed him to be exposed to incest.
Powerless to help himself, young Louis began showing signs of mental illness and extreme emotional disturbance. He failed to meet developmental milestones and sucked his thumb until age sixteen. The school sent home letters and reports but they went unacknowledged by his great-grandparents, either through neglect or because of their illiteracy.
By the age of fifteen, having only attained an eighth-grade education, Louis dropped out of school. Soon after he began getting in trouble for stealing, which escalated to burglaries and ultimately violence. He was in his early 20’s when he murdered Robert and Georgette Sturmfels - the crimes for which he was sentenced to death.
No one showed Louis love or compassion during his infancy, childhood, and teen years. No one on earth cared enough. But God cares about Louis and all his broken children, and he calls us today - indeed, he challenges us today - to show him compassion. "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17)
Louis has been safely housed on Florida’s death row for nearly 33 years. His time on death row has provided him with the peace, consistency, and structure he desperately needed as a young man. He has found comfort and strength in prayer and religion. If his execution goes forward, we will have taken away God’s gift of redemption, something Jesus would never do. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14 )
Governor and Board members, we acknowledge that decisions like these are difficult which is why we are praying for you. We ask that God will give you wisdom and that your leadership would be defined by supporting and upholding the value of all life, including this man with the tragic life who resides on death row. In the Old Testament we read, “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!" (Deuteronomy 30:19)
In the Love and Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, we ask you to choose life for Louis Gaskin.
Darryl Barwick
Note: The following was taken from a statement by Maria DeLiberato, Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Darryl came into this world unwanted and unloved. His mother tried to abort him by throwing herself down the stairs. The violence he witnessed and endured as a child is horrific. He was brutally beaten and abused; he witnessed his father rape his mother on more than one occasion. No one intervened to protect him during these years and without intervention, the cycle of violence caught up and he committed the violence that sent him to death row as a teenager.
Darryl’s story finally shifted when he was sent to death row. He grew up in prison. His brain finished developing. Though it was still prison, he was not subjected to constant physical violence at the hands of those supposed to protect him. He developed relationships. He’s had a pen pal, a Catholic Sister of Mercy and a Professor Emeritus at a university, for nearly 30 years. His spiritual advisor has visited him regularly over the years and brought him peace and comfort in their shared Catholic faith. He wasn’t a disciplinary problem. His neighbor on death row was legally blind, and Darryl helped him navigate everything.
Darryl expressed his deep regret and remorse at his brief and inadequate clemency hearing two years ago, “I’m guilty…I am sorry…I regret what I did…I don’t know if ever you could, you know, redeem yourself back from something like that, but I have tried.”
Just last week as he watched the days pass towards his own murder, Darryl asked these words to be shared, “Yes, I will die but that will not be the end…I do believe because I feel God is with me, it is why I am…at peace.”
Duane Owen
Duane Owen’s story is not new - he was born to alcoholic parents. His mother died of cancer. Shortly after his mother’s death, his father committed suicide. So, at just 9 years old, Duane became an orphan and a ward of the state. He was sent to an orphanage where he was sexually and physically abused. He was forced to have sex with a 35-year-old childcare director, someone who was supposed to protect him.
He is a person with severe mental illness and brain damage. He suffers from delusions and his frontal lobe brain impairments caused a compulsion to act which he could not control. All of this formed the basis of an insanity defense at trial, which was well supported by expert testimony. Despite his young age (23) and his documented history of mental illness, he was interrogated for more than 72 hours, and courts would later find that his Miranda rights were violated.
While his jury ultimately rejected the insanity defense, two of his jurors in both of Duane’s trials found that his significant mitigation warranted a life sentence. Had Duane been tried under a constitutional system that requires unanimous jury decisions, he would not be eligible for execution.