People often consider the topics about the death penalty the hardest ones among argumentative texts. It is required to state the personal position regarding the execution process and about its applicability for special categories of the society. The problem of the final punishment encompasses both moral and philosophical aspects. There will always be people who are voting for implementing crimes, and they have hundreds of reasons which support their position. There are also those who are claiming that execution is the remnant of the past dark ages, and now, there are other means of rehabilitating the criminals which can help them to atone for their sins.
It is possible to present a lot of cases where the death penalty is absolutely justified. Some of them are among the most atrocious and inhuman deeds which deserve nothing less than death. Here you will find 10 most terrifying cases which resulted in the death penalty. They will be perfect inspirational sources for death penalty research paper writing that can also assist in the development of personal opinion regarding the topic.
Top 10 Severest Death Penalty Cases
- Oklahoma bomberTimothy McVeigh, better known as Oklahoma bomber was condemned to death in 2001. He was guilty of taking lives of 168 people inflicting serious injuries to hundreds of innocent people as a result of an explosion of a bomb in a track near Alfred P Murrah Building. Up until 9/11 events, it was considered the most terrible mass terrorist act in the US. The criminal was totally remorseless and even joked that he will still win if executed – 168 corpses against one.
- The Butcher of PlainfieldEd Gein is among the most terrifying names for all American people. The number of his victims was not detected. The terrible person collected the body parts of the victims and crafted a mask of the victims’ skin. He was the prototype of the infamous movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The beast was condemned to death, but he didn’t live to the execution time as he died from cancer.
- Ted BundyAs per official statements, this person killed 30 people around the US while rougher estimates the claim that there were over a hundred of victims. He strangled and raped both men, women, and children. He was condemned to electrocution, and while sitting on it, the only thing he said was that it was the pornography that created him the way he was.
- Charles NgThe person was guilty of raping and killing nearly 25 people in a forest house. The criminal kidnapped, raped, and slaughtered the victims. The atrocity with which the killings were committed can scare even the most experienced criminals. Moreover, after being incarcerated during the exploration of the shelter, there were detected 18 kilos of burn bones which were buried on the earth floor.
- Lisa M MontgomeryThis female criminal is somewhat different from the previous ones – there was one murder, although the level of inhumanity is beyond all borders. She got acquainted with a future mother via a chat and met her in the real life. Lisa strangled the victim and cut her open with taking out the corpse of the unborn child. As per the analysis, she was perfectly sane while committing the crime. The reasons for such a behavior from a mother of four kids cannot be explained.
- Randy Steven KraftWithin a period of 10 years, the culprit raped, tortured, and killed near 70 young males of 13-35 age range and never accepted the guilt. The man is among the top serial killers who committed crimes based on sexual background. He lured the victims into his van where he raped and cut off the genitals. Freeway Killer – that was the nickname that he received for the manner of committing crimes. The most terrible thing is that even being condemned to death, he felt neither guilt nor remorse.
- Bobby Joe Long The man alone rose the killing level in the Tampa Bay to unbelievable level in 1984. He raped and killed mostly prostitutes like Jack the Reaper. He stayed unnoticed for a long time as people do not pay attention to the workers of sex industry considering them immoral and unneeded for the society until one of the women escaped and asked the police for help.
- Rodney AlcalaThis serial killer case is said to be the most numerous one. Before killing, the maniac liked to play with the victims. He is often associated with top-level cases of BTK killer and terrifying Zodiac Killer that was never captured or detected. Although he received 3 death sentences, he’s still alive.
- Charles MansonSometimes, the maniac can create a society of the same ill-perverse people. It happened with the creation of Manson Family, where cases of brutal slaughtering and cannibalism took place in the 1960s. Charles had been condemned to capital punishment in 1971, but it was postponed in 1972 after the cancellation of the death penalty. He lived until 2017 and died at the age of 83.
- Ricardo Ramirez
The person is frequently referred to as Night Stalker. He was not only a serial killer but also a Satanist and a necrophile. There were little children and old people among his victims. Some of the murders were performed as a satanic ritual. He wasn’t executed as he died from blood cancer in 2013.
These were and are some of many cases of similar outrage and horror. All of them deserve investigating as the core idea of crime and punishment should be analyzed for understanding the nature of the crimes and how they should be prevented in the most humane method.
References:
- Haggerty, Kevin. (2009). Modern serial killers. Crime Media Culture – CRIME MEDIA CULT. 5. 10.1177/1741659009335714. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228641791_Modern_serial_killers
- James Alan Fox and Jack Levin. Multiple Homicide: Patterns of Serial and Mass Murder. The University of Chicago Press. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Fox12/publication/238276561_Multiple_Homicide_Patterns_of_Serial_and_Mass_Murder/links/53f746700cf2888a749790af/Multiple-Homicide-Patterns-of-Serial-and-Mass-Murder.pdf
- Canter, David & Wentink, Natalia. (2004). An Empirical Test of Holmes and Holmes’s Serial Murder Typology. Criminal Justice and Behavior – CRIM JUSTICE BEHAV. 31. 489-515. 10.1177/0093854804265179. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Canter/publication/255659251_An_Empirical_Test_of_Holmes_and_Holmes%27s_Serial_Murder_Typology/links/0c96052aaf2fa54103000000/An-Empirical-Test-of-Holmes-and-Holmess-Serial-Murder-Typology.pdf?origin=publication_detail
- Kevin Haggerty and Ariane Ellerbrok. The social study of serial killers. cjm no. 86 December 2011 https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/sites/crimeandjustice.org.uk/files/09627251.2011.646180.pdf
- Gibson, D. (2006), Serial Murder and Media Circuses, Westport, CT: Praeger https://gpreview.kingborn.net/518000/bca00de3f6054816a942909b8ec395ca.pdf
- Amelie Pedneault. Ted Bundy on the “malignant being”: An analysis of the justificatory discourse of a serial killer. http://www.sfu.ca/~palys/crim862-Pedneault-TedBundyJustificatoryDiscourse.pdf