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A marijuana trafficker convicted of kidnapping and raping a teenage girl – and then burying her alive – was executed this week in an Indiana jail, becoming the eighth federal inmate to die this year.
Orlando Cordia Hall, 49, was put to death by lethal injection Thursday evening at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, where he was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m., the Justice Department said.
Court documents show that Hall, who ran an Arkansas marijuana smuggling operation with several accomplices, traveled to Arlington, Texas in September 1994 after a botched drug deal valued at $ 4,700.
Prosecutors said Hall and his accomplices came to the man’s home because they believed he had stolen their money and instead abducted his 16-year-old sister Lisa Rene after she refused to let them in.
Hall then raped the teenager – honored student and aspiring doctor – in a car and then drove her to an Arkansas hotel, where he and his accomplices tied her up and repeatedly raped her, said said prosecutors.
The next morning, Hall said the teenager knew “too much” and took her to a park where he and another man dug a grave earlier that afternoon, but couldn’t find the site.
A day later, on September 26, 1994, Hall and two other men took the teenager to Byrd Natural Lake Area in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where Hall placed a sheet over her head and hit her with a shovel. said prosecutors.
“René screamed and tried to run away, but the men tackled her and took turns beating her with the shovel,” the justice ministry said in a statement. “After dipping her in gasoline, they dragged her to the grave and buried her alive.
A federal jury convicted Hall in 1995 of kidnapping resulting in death and unanimously sentenced him to die by lethal injection.
In his closing statements, Hall encouraged others to become followers of Islam, the Tribune-Star reported.
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity to forgive,” Hall said. “Thank you to everyone who is here – my family and loved ones. I love you.”
Hall also had a final message for his children.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Take care of yourself. Tell my children that I love them.
One of Hall’s co-conspirators, Bruce Webster, was also sentenced to death, but a court overturned the sentence last year because of his intellectual disability. Three others, including Hall’s brother, cooperated in his trial and received lesser sentences.
René’s sister, meanwhile, said the execution capped a “very long and painful chapter” in the life of the family, the Tribune-Star reported.
“We have been dealing with this for 26 years and now we have to relive the tragic nightmare our beloved Lisa went through,” Pearl Rene said in a statement. “Ending this painful process will be a major goal for our family. This is only the end of the legal consequences. The execution of Orlando Hall will never stop the suffering we continue to endure. Thank you for praying for our family as well as his.
With pole wires
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