Chamblee54

The state of Georgia is planning to execute Virgil Delano Presnell Jr. on May 17. He was convicted of killing an 8 year old girl, and raping a 10 year old. The crimes were committed May 4, 1976. There is little doubt that Mr. Presnell is guilty. This is the short version of the story. You can read the rest of this feature for more details. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” The names of the girls will not be used in this feature.
“On May 3, 1976, Presnell staked out an elementary school in Cobb County and observed a ten-year-old girl walking home on a wooded trail. He returned the following day and waited on the trail. In his car, he had a rug and a jar of lubricant.”
“When the ten-year-old girl came walking down the trail with her eight-year-old friend, Presnell abducted both girls. He taped their mouths shut and threatened to kill them if they did not cooperate; he also said he had a gun. They got into Presnell’s blue Plymouth Duster. While Presnell was driving, he forced the older girl to orally sodomize him and inserted his finger into her vagina.”
“They drove to a secluded area and Presnell walked the children into the woods. He carried the rug and the jar of lubricant. He made both girls undress and he raped the older girl on the rug. Her vagina was torn during the rape and began bleeding. Presnell then said that he was going to take ___ back to his car and that the older girl should wait for him. On the way back to the car, ___ tried to run away, but Presnell caught her and forced her face underwater in a creek, drowning her.”
“The medical examiner testified that there was water, sand and plant matter in her lungs and stomach and that it would have taken one to several minutes for her to die. She had bruises on her neck and a bruise on her back from where Presnell apparently placed his knee. Presnell returned to the older girl and again forced her to orally sodomize him. He then locked her in his car trunk and began driving, but a tire went flat so he dropped her off in another wooded area after forcing her to commit oral sodomy again.” Although Presnell told her he would return, the older girl heard the sound of a nearby gas station and walked there. She later gave police a description of Presnell and his blue Duster and stated that his tire was flat. Shortly thereafter the police spotted Presnell changing a tire on his blue Duster at his apartment complex not far from where he dropped off the older girl.”
“Presnell initially denied everything but later admitted that he knew the location of the missing girl and led the police to ___’s body. He also confessed. A search of Presnell’s bedroom uncovered a handgun and child pornography depicting young girls.”
“Presnell was convicted in 1976 of malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury and other crimes and was sentenced to death for the murder. … In 1992, Presnell’s death sentence was vacated during Federal habeas corpus proceedings. … A re-sentencing trial was held in 1999 and the jury recommended a death sentence after finding beyond a reasonable doubt that Presnell committed the murder while engaged in the commission of kidnapping with bodily injury and that the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture and depravity of mind.”
In the years after the crime, the execution of Mr. Presnell was fought. Many of the tactics appear foolish to the layman observer. “Presnell challenged the composition of the Cobb County Board of Jury Commissioners, which authorized Presnell’s jury pool, on the basis that the board was composed of only five members instead of the six members required by OCGA 15-12-20.” No nit is too picky for a lawyer, trying to keep a guilty man from being executed.
“The Supreme Court of Georgia vacated Petitioner’s conviction for forcible rape after determining that the trial court had charged both statutory and forcible rape and the jury’s verdict did not specify between the two … ruled that, in light of the ambiguity, the trial court had to sentence Petitioner for the offense of statutory rape. … also vacated Petitioner’s death sentences for the offenses of forcible rape and kidnapping with bodily injury, as each sentence depended upon the finding of forcible rape, which was vacated …” This is what lawyers argue about.
“Presnell contends the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress the gun and books of child pornography found in his bedroom. Presnell lived with his mother in an apartment. Two days after his arrest and confession, the police went to the apartment to look for the gun Presnell said he had possessed and that the older girl had noticed in his Duster when he dropped her off. Although they did not have a search warrant, police witnesses testified that Presnell’s mother consented to a search of Presnell’s bedroom and that she showed them the handgun, which she apparently owned but to which Presnell had access, in Presnell’s headboard/bookcase. It was at that time that the police also noticed and seized the child pornography books. There was no evidence that Presnell’s bedroom was locked or that he paid rent.”
“At trial, Presnell’s mother corroborated the police testimony by admitting that she consented to a search of the bedroom. Although Presnell argues that his mother did not have authority to consent to a search of his bedroom, the evidence was sufficient … to find that his mother had common control and authority over his bedroom and that she could therefore consent to a search of that area. … The trial court did not err by admitting the gun and the child pornography books into evidence.”
“There is no evidence to support Presnell’s assertion that the magistrate who issued the search warrant for his Duster in 1976 was not neutral and detached because he had a pecuniary interest in issuing the warrant. … The record shows that the search warrant was facially valid and supported by probable cause. … Therefore, the evidence seized from his car was properly admitted.”
“Presnell contends the trial court committed reversible error by allowing the State to use at trial a book, entitled Radiant Identities by Jock Sturges, which contained photographs of nude children, that the State claimed Presnell had ordered in 1996 from his prison cell. … The State’s evidence properly established that Presnell was upset about the rejection of a book entitled Radiant Identities and, as a consequence, sent a letter to the warden requesting the prison rules and guidelines governing the receipt of materials containing pictures of nude children. Although Presnell claims that the admission of the book was highly inflammatory, the defense did not dispute that Presnell continued to be a pedophile and that Radiant Identities was the type of book to which a pedophile would be attracted.” (An amazon review: “dont waste your money, there is nothing here worth seeing.”)
“Presnell asserts that the trial court erroneously allowed the State to introduce improper evidence regarding his 1976 Florida conviction for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and numerous Georgia arrests and convictions for motor vehicle thefts. … However, the record shows that the documentary evidence of these convictions and indictments was not presented to the jury but only placed in the record so the State could demonstrate it had a good faith basis for asking Presnell’s mitigation witnesses on cross-examination about their knowledge of Presnell’s criminal history.”
The next paragraph is the strangest one I saw in my research on this case. “At the hearing petitioner produced three witnesses, none of whom challenged any of the aggravating circumstances alleged by the State, and all of whom were designed to appeal to the jury’s mercy. Dr. Harry Porter, a psychiatrist, testified that he had diagnosed petitioner as suffering from pedophilia, a medical condition he considered curable. Dr. Porter also testified that he did not believe petitioner had intended to harm his victims, and characterized petitioner as a very compliant individual who could function satisfactorily in a controlled environment. Dr. Miguel A. Bosh, another psychiatrist, also testified to the treatability of pedophilia. Rev. John T. Welch, a Baptist minister who had supervised petitioner for twelve months at a mission for juvenile delinquents, testified that he had baptized petitioner and described petitioner as “easily swayed.” Finally, petitioner’s mother, Lois Cole, spoke of her son’s troubled childhood in a broken home without the benefit of fatherly guidance for most of his youth, and his academic problems leading to the failure of “two or three different grades.”
The execution got a step closer on Monday evening. “The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has decided to deny clemency for … Virgil Delano Presnell, Jr. on Monday evening. He is scheduled to be executed Tuesday, May 17 at 7 p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. …”
“His attorney argued in a clemency application that Presnell had significant cognitive impairments that likely contributed to his crimes and has suffered horrific abuse in prison. … “Virgil Presnell is profoundly disabled,” his attorney Monet Brewerton-Palmer wrote in the clemency application that was declassified Friday by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles. Presnell’s mother drank large amounts of alcohol while she was pregnant with him, and a history of serious developmental disabilities is well-documented in his school records, Brewerton-Palmer wrote, adding that he grew up in an “abusive and unstable environment,” and sexual abuse was “endemic” in his family.”
Mr. Presnell “requested a last meal of four hamburgers, four french fries, two vanilla milkshakes, four sodas, eight-piece bucket of chicken, potato salad and two pints of vanilla ice cream.”