Winford Stokes was a convicted Missouri serial killer and rapist who murdered three persons from 1969 to '78. He became the third person the state executed in the modern era of capital punishment. Stokes, an African-American, was born in St. Louis on March 21, 1951, part of a family of ten, and attended school to the 8th grade. Not much else is known about his upbringing, but on April 30, 1969, he and two friends, David Richards, 17, and Allen Smith, 18, robbed a barroom on Easton Avenue at gunpoint. They looted the cash register and shot and killed the owner, Ignatius DiManuele. Stokes later claimed they did this for no reason in particular outside a desire to "get a whitey."Stokes, Richards, and Smith then drove off. They were not apprehended until May 13 when two St. Louis detectives pulled over Stokes and questioned him. He threw a pistol out the car window and was immediately arrested. Stokes was questioned by the detectives, he confessed to the robbery of the Easton Avenue bar, and named his two accomplices, who were apprehended shortly afterward. They were all identified by witnesses. Stokes was held in Homer G. Phillips Hospital in downtown St. Louis, a historically black hospital, while awaiting trial.
On October 23, 1970, a St. Louis County deputy named John Curtis went into the ward to collect food plates. Stokes grabbed his service revolver and ordered Curtis to strip down to his underwear and hand over the keys to his police car. He tied the deputy up with pieces of bedsheet and escaped with four other prisoners. Two prisoners who remained in the hospital untied Curtis. Three of the escaped prisoners were captured shortly afterward, but Stokes and another prisoner, 18 year old Joseph Wallace, remained on the lam. Stokes was caught a few days later, convicted, and sentenced to nine years in prison for manslaughter and armed robbery.Stokes served seven years and was paroled in 1977. That December 7, he knocked on the door of a 71 year old white man named Erssie Lucas. The old man opened the door whereupon Stokes began hitting him with a claw hammer. He robbed the house and escaped; Lucas ultimately survived. On December 12, Stokes broke into the apartment of 73 year old Marie Montgomery, shot her in the arm and neck, killing her, and robbed the place. Montgomery failed to show up to church services next Sunday so her niece went to check on her and found the body. Stokes was arrested on January 15, 1978 and put in Malcolm Bliss Mental Health Center for evaluation while awaiting trial. He escaped the facility in a few hours.
On February 21, Stokes was in a St. Louis bar when he met Pamela Benda, a 33 year old white faculty waitress at Washington University. He convinced Benda to go with him to her University City apartment, where upon he beat and stabbed her with a kitchen knife, and then strangled her. Stokes undressed her and left the body in the bedroom before stealing jewelry from a drawer. He then took her '74 Plymouth Scamp and drove across the state line to South Bend, Indiana, where he lived with his wife Ramona. Stokes hocked Benda's jewelry at a pawn shop. Police initially suspected Benda's boyfriend as she'd argued with him recently, but he was later cleared of any involvement, and it was apparent that she'd let her killer into the apartment willingly as there was no sign of forced entry. The case would be dubbed "the Mr. Goodbar Case" because the victim had a copy of the novel Looking For Mr. Goodbar in her apartment.Stokes was identified from fingerprints found in the apartment and apprehended on June 9. Once again he was held in Homer G. Phillips Hospital while awaiting trial for first degree murder and robbery. On December 3, Stokes and two other prisoners named Samuel Smith and Earl Davis repeated the exact same stunt from eight years earlier when they overpowered the guards, took their weapons, forced them to strip down to their skivvies, and fled. The next day, one of the guards, Richard Campbell, resigned his position for breaking security regulations. The fugitives were all captured in South Chicago on December 11.
Why the fuck would you just screnshit and not cap it? Nigger
Stokes waived his right to a jury trial, pled guilty to second degree murder in Marie Montgomery's death on September 10, 1979, and received 50 years in prison. The prosecution offered him a concurrent 50 year sentence if he would also pled guilty to murdering Pamela Benda, but he declined and decided to go to trial for that one as he thought two murder charges would make it harder for him to get parole. The prosecution sought the death penalty and on October 24, Stokes was found guilty of murdering Benda. His public defender John McCaffrey argued that it was unfair to have an all-white jury judge him since he was black and the victim had been white. DA John Walsh countered that the defendant had already committed two murders and Judge John Rickhoff sentenced him to death.Stokes's execution date was set for October 28, 1982 but three days before that, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun granted him a stay. The full Court later rejected his appeal and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals turned him down in December 1989. Stokes was executed by lethal injection on May 11, 1990 and had no final words.
>>18461936>On February 21, Stokes was in a St. Louis bar when he met Pamela Benda, a 33 year old white faculty waitress at Washington University. He convinced Benda to go with him to her University City apartment, where uponShe went with him willingly. No sympathy from me. Sorry, honey.
>>18461937the OP pic was actually from Stokes's findagrave page
>>18461939at least he wasn't on death row for 40 years like some people
OP please don't post about black-on-white crimes. Thank you.
>>18461933>>18461936>>18461939how fucking retarded were these guys that they don't even put him in an actual jail, but a hospital so he could escape easily, and repeatedly?
>>18462005Shalom.
>>18461937Who fucking cares?&
>>18461932Why is there no Netflix doc about this guy?
>>18461936Imagine finding out your girlfriend died cheating on you.
>>18462005whatcha doing rabbi
