Rutherford executed for killing woman 21 years ago

STARKE -- Arthur Rutherford was executed Wednesday night, put to death for the 1985 murder of Stella Salamon in her Milton home.

It was Florida's 62nd execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Rutherford's final appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court were rejected late Wednesday afternoon.

Rutherford's bloody palm prints were on the tile of the bathtub where Salamon was discovered Aug. 22 more than twenty years ago. She was stripped, beaten and left to drown. Co-workers and associates testified that Rutherford told them of his intentions before the killing and bragged of it afterward.

The Santa Rosa County native, 57, had no final statement before his execution. No friends or family of Salamon were among the 24 witnesses to the lethal injection.

When prison officials opened the curtain into the death chamber at 6 p.m., Rutherford craned his neck and seemed to acknowledge his spiritual adviser among the witnesses. Dale Recinella, a lay Catholic prison chaplain, raised an open hand to the condemned man through the window that separates witnesses and the execution team.

As the fatal three drugs began to be administered, Rutherford's lips moved while the rest of his body was restrained by leather straps on a hospital gurney. At 6:01 his eyes blinked, his mouth fell agape and he stared blankly at the ceiling.

At 6:11, the first of two blue-smocked and hooded medical personnel entered the death chamber, checked Rutherford's vitals and departed, the last with a nod to warden Randall Bryant.

"The sentence of the state of Florida vs. Arthur Rutherford has been carried out at 6:13," said an assistant warden at Florida State Prison.

About 50 anti-death penalty protesters held a vigil across the highway from the maximum security prison while the executions was taking place. Mark Elliott, a spokesman for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the group included people who came in a bus chartered by the Catholic Diocese of Orlando.

No one supporting the death penalty made a public showing Wednesday.
"The executions today was of an ex-Marine, a Vietnam veteran with five children calling for him to be spared," Elliott said. "Is he really the worst of the worst that this punishment is designed for?"

Rutherford was executed a day after a more detailed description of Florida's Death Row procedures and lethal injection protocol was released publicly.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected three petitions for stays of execution.

"Certainly, we thought that our petitions had merit," said Linda McDermott, who was one of Rutherford's attorneys for nearly seven years. "We're obviously aware of the realities."

Earlier in the day, Rutherford had a final visit from a dozen family members that included his father, a brother and sister, three daughters and a son and three grandchildren. For one of the three hours of the final visit, Rutherford and family members were allowed to touch, according to Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger.

McDermott said her client was devoted to his family and the execution was difficult for them.

"I don't know how they're getting through the night," she said.
Rutherford, a Santa Rosa County native, was condemned for the beating and strangling death of 63-year-old Salamon in her Milton home more than two decades ago.

He was scheduled for execution in January when a last-minute stay from the U.S. Supreme Court spared his life then. No such stay came Wednesday night.

Salamon, a native of Australia, has no known family still in the United States. Her neighbor and friend, Beverly Elkins -- who found Salamon's body after she was murdered -- said last week it was long past time that Rutherford paid for his crime

A Walton County jury convicted him in a second trial -- the first in Santa Rosa County was declared a mistrial -- and voted 7-5 to condemn him to death
But Rutherford, from his trial onward, has maintained his innocence.
Rutherford had worked on Salamon's house when it was first built a dozen years before and she had him working on her sliding glass doors at the time of the murder.

But she was uneasy about Rutherford's presence around her house. Elkins said Salamon told her she thought Rutherford was "casing the joint" in the days before the murder.

Next week, Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper who pleaded guilty to the 1990 murder of five students, is set for execution. On Tuesday, the Florida Supreme Court rejected his petition for a stay, exhausting his state appeals.