NATION : Killer of Three Women Executed
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RICHMOND, Va. — Buddy Earl Justus, convicted of killing three women in three states, nodded to a sheriff who pursued him and smiled at a prison minister before he died in Virginia’s electric chair.
Justus, 37, had no final words Thursday before he was executed at the State Penitentiary. He was pronounced dead shortly after 11 p.m.
“Be strong, you’ll move on,” the Rev. Russ Ford, a prison chaplain, told Justus as the inmate gave him a slight smile.
After he was strapped in the oak electric chair, Justus nodded at Montgomery County Sheriff Louis E. Barber, who investigated the 1978 rape-slaying of Ida Mae Moses, 21, when she was nearly nine months pregnant.
Barber said he has been haunted by the crime ever since.
“He was afforded a great deal more dignity than Ida Moses,” the sheriff said after watching the execution.
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