Kaine declines to stop tonight’s execution

Death Row inmate Larry Bill Elliott is scheduled to be executed tonight at 9 for the 2001 murder of Dana Thrall in Prince William County.

This afternoon, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine declined to intervene in the case; in September, he had delayed Elliott's Oct. 5 execution date so his staff could review Elliott's claim of innocence and petition to commute his death sentence to a term of life in prison.

"Elliott's trial, verdict, and sentence have been reviewed by state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court of Virginia, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court," Kaine said in a statement.

"Having carefully reviewed the petition for clemency and judicial opinions regarding this case, I find no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was recommended by the jury and then imposed and affirmed by the courts."

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Elliott's application for a stay of execution.

Elliott, 60, has selected electrocution over lethal injection. He will be put to death in the electric chair at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, located about 90 minutes south of Richmond.

In May 2003, Elliott, a former Army intelligence officer from Hanover, Md., was sentenced to die for the Jan. 2, 2001, murder of 25-year-old Thrall.

Thrall was pistol-whipped and shot three times in the head in her Dale City town house. Robert Finch, 30, who lived with Thrall, was shot in the head, chest and back. Elliott was given a sentence of life in prison without parole for Finch's murder.

Prosecutors said Elliott murdered the couple because he viewed Finch as a threat to his "sugar daddy" relationship with Finch's ex-partner, Rebecca Gragg, a former stripper Elliott had met through a Web site.

Police never found the murder weapon, but ballistic tests confirmed that the bullets that killed the couple were fired by the same weapon. Additionally, Elliott's DNA profile was identified in blood found on the gate of the town home's privacy fence.

Anti-death penalty advocates said Elliott has a strong claim of innocence, stating that there was no evidence Elliott had entered the house where the murders occurred.

"Virginia should not execute a man where so many questions about his guilt remain," wrote Beth Panilaitis of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The group has organized protests this evening at courthouses throughout the commonwealth and is expected to be outside the Greensville Correctional Center when the sentence is carried out.

Elliott will be the 105th person executed in Virginia since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Of the previous 104, a total of 28 chose electrocution, while 76 have chosen lethal injection, which was added as a method of execution in 1995.

Elliot is the oldest of the 14 men and one woman currently serving on death row.

Last week, the state put to death convicted Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammed.

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or .