William Emmett LeCroy Jr. Faced the Executioner for savage rape and murder of nurse
Statement By Department Of Justice Spokesperson Kerri Kupec On The Execution Of William Emmett Lecroy Jr.
Department of Justice Spokesperson Kerri Kupec has issued the following statement:
“Today, William Emmett LeCroy Jr., 50, was executed at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute in accordance with the capital sentence recommended by a federal jury and imposed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in 2004. LeCroy was pronounced dead at 9:06 p.m. EDT.
In October 2001, LeCroy robbed, raped and murdered Joann Lee Tiesler, a 30-year-old nurse. LeCroy had previously served 10 years in federal and state prison for, among other crimes, aggravated assault, burglary, child molestation, and statutory rape. After his release to supervised probation, LeCroy began planning to flee the country. In furtherance of that plan, LeCroy broke into Tiesler’s home in Gilmer County, Georgia. Once she returned, LeCroy attacked her with a shotgun, bound her hands behind her back with cable ties, strangled her with an electrical cord, and raped and sodomized her at the foot of her bed. He then slashed her throat with a knife and repeatedly stabbed her in the back. After murdering her, LeCroy stole her vehicle and drove to the Canadian border, where he was arrested. In March 2004, a federal jury found LeCroy guilty of carjacking resulting in death and unanimously recommended a sentence of death, which the district court imposed. His conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal, and his requests for collateral relief were rejected by every court that considered them.
Nearly 19 years after brutally ending the life of Joann Lee Tiesler, William Emmett LeCroy finally has faced the justice he deserved. Family members and loved ones of Tiesler, including her father and her fiancé, witnessed the execution.” DOJ
More facts from the Court listener:
While living with his mother and stepfather, LeCroy began a sexual relationship with one of Sam Houston’s two daughters, Alecia, who was just shy of her fourteenth birthday. The family discovered the relationship in January, 1990, when Alecia’s mother—Sam Houston’s ex-wife—found a note written by Alecia to a friend detailing her sexual encounters with LeCroy. Alecia’s mother reported the incident to the police and urged local authorities to charge LeCroy with statutory rape. Meanwhile, the Cobb County police were investigating a string of burglaries that occurred between late 1990 and early 1991. The police identified LeCroy as a suspect and arrested him on March 3, 1991, following a traffic stop. Police found a gun in LeCroy’s car along with several handwritten notes. 2 LeCroy was first convicted in state court for aggravated assault, burglary, child molestation, and statutory rape. As he was serving his sentence for those crimes, he was convicted in federal court for possession of a sawed-off shotgun, which he had obtained in one of his burglaries. He served an additional five years in federal prison for that offense. In total, he was incarcerated for just over ten years.
LeCroy was released from federal prison in August 2001 and subject to a three-year term of supervised release.
His Defense:
Tiesler was, in fact, Tinkerbell, the babysitter who had sexually abused him as a child. LeCroy began to suspect that Tinkerbell had been a witch and that her sexual abuse had placed him under some kind of spell, and that in turn this spell explained all the troubles and frustrations in his life. Tiesler—by now synonymous with Tinkerbell—had placed some kind of sexual spell on him, she could also be made to undo that spell. As Doctor Hilton related it, “[LeCroy] started to develop a plan that he needed to reverse the roles on Tinkerbell and do to her what she had done to him.” Hilton Report at 10. For entire Bizzare defense visit HERE