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lori miller

New Member
So basically this was a double homicide that occurred in 1980. Two women were killed, best friends. The killer was one of the women's cousin. The trial happened around 2000 and the man was sentenced to execution by electric chair but The other women's ( the not cousin) husband sued some state officials and spared the guy the death penalty and the assailant is still in prison. The husband lives in Oregon but this happened when his wife was out of state to visit her parents and stopped by to visit a friend. The friends cousin was drunk and broke in at night and killed both. He had no prior major criminal history according to the man.


Its supposed to be a fairly well known case with many google results, but I can't find anything? Can anyone identify this case?
 
Manuel Cortez murdered two young women in Oregon in 1979-80, but he was prosecuted immediately....

Gerald Gallego Killed more than two in the 1978-1980 period, but some of the victims were taken in sets of best friends. His court case was in 1984, and his death sentence was overturned in 1999.....
 
Randolph Reeves murdered Janet Mesner and Victoria Lamm in Nebraska in 1980. He was sentenced to death but in late 1999 it was overturned because Janet's parents and Victoria's husband fought against the execution.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/20/u...ps-condemned-killer-alive.html?pagewanted=all

Could this be it? This is all I have!
[doublepost=1462043270,1462042420][/doublepost]
Gerald Gallego Killed more than two in the 1978-1980 period, but some of the victims were taken in sets of best friends. His court case was in 1984, and his death sentence was overturned in 1999.....

Good guess! I forgot about this one!
 
Randolph Reeves murdered Janet Mesner and Victoria Lamm in Nebraska in 1980. He was sentenced to death but in late 1999 it was overturned because Janet's parents and Victoria's husband fought against the execution.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/20/u...ps-condemned-killer-alive.html?pagewanted=all

Could this be it? This is all I have!
[doublepost=1462043270,1462042420][/doublepost]

Good guess! I forgot about this one!

There is nothing that completely conforms to the description in the original post.

I think with the years involved and the fighting against execution by a surprising party your guess is a good one. Didn't show in my searches because I had made Oregon one of the core parameters of them.....
 
Ok, well I'm pretty sure it has to be a Nebraska crime, based solely on your statement wording. ;)

"and the man was sentenced to execution by electric chair"

At that time, Nebraska was the only state who did not have lethal injection (or firing squad or any other method) as another option. So in every other state, you are sentenced to "execution", it is not method specific.

The inmate chooses how they want to die.
 
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I think you nailed it,

Victim Identified Reeves as Killer

Mr. Reeves, 42, was convicted of using a kitchen knife to stab to death Janet Mesner, 30, and Victoria Lamm, 28, in the early morning of March 29, 1980. Ms. Mesner was living in the Quaker meeting house and working as its caretaker, and her friend Ms. Lamm, who was 15 weeks' pregnant, had returned for a visit after moving to Oregon. Ms. Lamm's 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Audrey, was also in the house, but does not remember anything about that night.

Ms. Mesner lived long enough to call the police and identify Mr. Reeves as the killer. Mr. Reeves, a construction worker on temporary jobs who was known to be a drinker but not a violent man, later confessed to the killings, but said he remembered little about the incident.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/20/u...ps-condemned-killer-alive.html?pagewanted=all
 
Quakers and therefore opposed to the DP from the article I previously linked in ... also a bit that confirms perp and victim were cousins from same article:

At the age of 3, Mr. Reeves was removed from a troubled family on the Omaha Indian Reservation and adopted by Donald and Barbara Reeves, who lived on a farm in Central City. The Reeveses are distant cousins of the Mesners and attend the same meeting house in Central City.

''We watched him grow up,'' said Mildred Mesner, Janet Mesner's mother. ''I taught him in Sunday school class. He was close with one of our sons. I know he didn't have any hatred toward Janet.''

Randolph Reeves's parents have generally stayed in the background in the case, unwilling to ask for support even though they adamantly oppose the death penalty, and Donald Reeves has worked for national Quaker organizations.

For 18 years, Randolph Reeves's lawyers have appealed on various grounds, sending the case before the Nebraska Supreme Court four times and the United States Supreme Court twice.

Through it all, Janet Mesner's parents have lobbied against the execution of Mr. Reeves, their efforts eventually getting the support of national Quaker organizations.

''In Nebraska, we're very much a minority,'' Mrs. Mesner said. ''Seventy-five to 80 percent of the people here believe in the death penalty, and so it's been very lonely for us.''

Ms. Lamm's husband, Gus, and her daughter, Audrey, now 21, joined the protest only recently. The two, like Ms. Lamm, are not Quakers but oppose the death penalty.
 
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