A fellow inmate John Blackwelder confessed to killing was really killed by someone else, according to a hearsay report the state is checking.
By Associated Press
Published May 26, 2004
STARKE - John Blackwelder's execution was delayed a day Tuesday while state officials check out a story that another inmate confessed to killing Raymond Wigley.
The execution was postponed until today at 6 p.m., the governor's office said in a statement.
Blackwelder, 49, had been scheduled for execution at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Florida State Prison for the murder of Wigley, 39, a fellow inmate who was serving a life term for murder.
At the time of the slaying, Blackwelder was serving life without parole for a series of sex convictions, including sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in St. Lucie County.
Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections, said Blackwelder was pleased with the delay.
"He was not mad. He was not unhappy. He chuckled," Ivey said.
The delay was ordered after inmate William Demler wrote the state Attorney General's Office to say another inmate told him that yet another inmate confessed to killing Wigley on May 6, 2000.
"I understand what I am telling you is double hearsay," Demler wrote in a letter dated May 22. "... However, in light of the circumstances and the immediacy of the situation ... I felt an obligation to notify the attorneys involved."
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate Demler's claim, the governor's office said.
Demler works in the law library at Union Correctional Institution, where Blackwelder was moved after his murder conviction. He said he didn't know Blackwelder except to issue books to him in the library.
"I have nothing to gain from telling you what I have learned," Demler wrote. "I was just brought up to value life, regardless of how worthless that life may seem to be."
Blackwelder said in a media interview Monday he killed Wigley to ensure he would get the death penalty because he couldn't stand the idea of spending his life in prison without parole.
"I am sorry for killing Wigley, but to get what I wanted, I had to," said Blackwelder, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.
Last year, after the Florida Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and death sentence, Blackwelder filed a motion to waive any more appeals.
Wigley was strangled at Columbia Correctional Institution. Blackwelder said he lured Wigley into his cell with the promise of a sex act, then tied him to the bed and killed him as Wigley begged for mercy.
Wigley was convicted of the rape, torture and murder of Adella Maria Simmons, 47, in 1983.
Blackwelder, formerly of Fort Pierce, visited with a sister for about three hours Tuesday morning, still expecting to die in the evening. He ate most of what would have been his final meal of pizza, with cheese, onions, green peppers, ground beef and mushrooms, drank a Coke and nibbled on a salad, Ivey said.
