Arkansas Has 1st Execution in 26 Years
- Share via
PINE BLUFF, Ark. — A convicted killer was put to death in the electric chair Monday night in the state’s first execution in 26 years.
John Edward Swindler, 46, a husky, red-faced native of Columbia, S.C., was sentenced to die for the 1976 shooting death of Randy Basnett, 30, a police officer in Ft. Smith, Ark.
He was strapped into a wooden chair and subjected to 2,300 volts of electricity at 9:02 p.m. He was declared dead at 9:05 p.m.
Swindler, who had also been convicted of killing two teen-agers in South Carolina and was charged with killing a Pennsylvania student in Florida, was put to death at the state’s Cummins Prison Unit about 20 miles southeast of Pine Bluff.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
The latest effort is coming from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. They just announced a $3 million program in conjunction with some nonprofits groups to test and clean the soil at homes still standing in the areas impacted by the Eaton Fire.
California once bet big on offshore wind to help power its clean-energy future, but the Trump administration is now paying developers billions to walk away from their projects. As California’s remaining offshore-wind leases hang in the balance, the state is fighting back in court.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
