Inmate Weds Just Before Execution Last Appeals Rejected In Case That Gained Worldwide Attention

Hours after getting married, a death row inmate whose cause was championed by the pope, Mother Teresa and the Italian government was executed Wednesday night for a 1985 rape and murder he said he didn’t commit.

Joseph Roger O’Dell III, 54, died by injection at 6:16 p.m. PDT after the Supreme Court rejected his last-minute appeal.

After being strapped to the gurney, O’Dell said it “was the happiest day of my life because I got married to my wife.” He pledged to love his new bride, Lori Urs, “throughout eternity.”

Earlier in the day, Gov. George Allen rejected a plea for clemency, and a federal appeals court on Tuesday refused to order newer, more sophisticated DNA tests of semen taken from the victim. O’Dell’s lawyers had argued that the tests could prove him innocent in the slaying of Helen Schartner.

In his final statement, O’Dell said he was innocent and asked the governor to preserve evidence for investigators.

“Eddie, I did not kill your mother,” O’Dell said to Schartner’s son, who was believed to be witnessing the execution.

Outside the prison, about a dozen opponents of capital punishment staged a candlelight vigil.

O’Dell had argued that he should have been allowed to tell the jurors at his sentencing in 1986 that if they did not give him the death penalty, he would have to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The case has gotten extraordinary attention in Italy, where opposition to capital punishment runs high and where Urs, the Boston University law student O’Dell married Wednesday in a cellblock next to the death chamber, has worked the media.

A death row chaplain officiated as O’Dell and Urs exchanged vows through the bars of his cell. Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking,” and prison guards served as official witnesses. For security reasons, the newlyweds were not permitted to touch.

The governor said his decision on clemency would not be influenced by pressure from Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II and the Italian government. Allen said O’Dell’s guilt had been firmly established.

At O’Dell’s trial, prosecutors showed that the wounds on Schartner’s head matched the shape of a pellet gun owned by O’Dell. Tire tracks from the crime scene matched O’Dell’s car. Semen on the victim’s body matched O’Dell’s blood and enzyme types. And hairs in O’Dell’s car matched those of the victim.

Gail Lee, the victim’s sister, said the international support for O’Dell left her family frustrated.

“We’re all very fragile at this point,” Lee said. “It’s just like the Italians hate us. They in essence have said to my family, ‘You are worthless. Helen’s life didn’t matter.”’