JARRATT, Va., March 19 (UPI) -- Brian Lee Cherrix was executed by injection in Virginia's death chamber at Jarratt, a decade after he raped and killed a young mother.
Cherrix, 30, was sentenced to death for the Jan. 27, 1994, murder of Tessa Van Hart, 23, a mother of two who worked as a pizza deliverywoman on Chincoteague Island.
She had been lured to a remote area of the island to deliver a pizza where she was sodomized and shot twice in the head, the Washington Post said. Members of her family, including her husband and mother, attended the Thursday night execution.
Cherrix, of Accomack County, Va., was pronounced dead at 9:10 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Center. He declined to make a final statement, Corrections Department spokesman Larry Traylor said.
Cherrix, who has claimed innocence, decided not to seek clemency and instructed his defense attorneys not to file any final appeals, attorney Michele Brace said.
