The Nation - News from June 8, 1987

A man described by his mother as lacking a solid family life was executed in the electric chair in Angola, La., for killing an off-duty sheriff’s deputy moonlighting as a guard during a 1978 bank robbery. Benjamin Berry, 31, of Baton Rouge shrugged off help from a minister and refused to make a final statement. When asked if he wanted to pray, he reportedly replied: “I’ve already done that.” Appeals for Berry, who had won seven stays, ran out late Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt the execution, and Gov. Edwin W. Edwards said he would not step in. Four other Death Row inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary are scheduled to die in the next two weeks.