Murders Alabama

A man convicted of murdering a federal judge during a string of mail bombings that terrorized the South was sentenced Monday to die in Alabama's electric chair. Walter Leroy Moody already is serving seven life sentences without parole on his federal convictions in the bombings. The death sentence handed down in state court pleased the family of U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Vance, who was killed when he opened a package in his kitchen in 1989.

A young man was sentenced Friday to life in prison for herding restaurant employees into a walk-in freezer during a robbery and killing three of them. Cuhuatemoc "Tempo" Peraita was convicted of capital murder in the April 15, 1994, attack. Peraita's co-defendant, Robert Bryant Melson, 25, is scheduled for trial in April.

Three employees of a fast-food restaurant were herded into a walk-in cooler and shot to death early Saturday, police said. A fourth worker, wounded and left for dead, crawled to a phone and called police. Less than two hours later, police arrested two people and charged them with capital murder. One of the suspects had been fired Monday from the Popeye's Famous Fried Chicken restaurant, police Capt. Jimmie Flanagan said.

A doctor who performed abortions was fatally shot when he confronted a man breaking into his car, and police officers said they didn't know if the killing was the result of a robbery or related to his work. Dr. George Wayne Patterson was killed when he returned to his car in Mobile's nightclub district, in an area where "quite a few robberies" have occurred, police investigator Allan Carpenter said. No arrests were made. Patterson, 44, had worked at Family Planning of Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

A surveillance camera captured the decapitation of a service station clerk during a weekend holdup in Mobile, Ala., leading to a capital murder charge against a drifter from Loma Linda. Police Capt. Frank Sullivan said Samuel Ivery, 35, was arrested Sunday morning within a block of the station where the body of Debra Lewis, 27, was found. Authorities said she was alone at the station when she was assaulted Saturday about 1:20 p.m.

The Justice Department said it will turn over convicted mail bomber Walter Leroy Moody Jr. to the state of Alabama for prosecution on murder charges that could result in a death sentence. The department said Alabama's request to prosecute Moody for the murder of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Robert S. Vance of Birmingham would take precedence over Georgia's request to prosecute him for the murder of Savannah City Alderman Robert E. Robinson.

A man convicted of killing a federal appeals judge and a civil rights lawyer with mail bombs was sentenced Tuesday to seven life terms plus 400 years in prison, with no possibility of parole. Walter Leroy Moody Jr. "struck viciously" at the principles of judicial independence and minority rights, U.S. District Judge Edward Devitt said as he imposed the toughest sentence allowed.

A jury convicted Walter Leroy Moody Jr. of first-degree murder Friday in the 1989 mail-bomb deaths of a federal appeals court judge and a civil rights attorney in the South. In all, Moody, 57, of Rex., Ga., was found guilty on all 71 counts related to the bombings. Moody sat expressionless, turning the pages of charges as the guilty verdicts were read one by one. Jurors deliberated a day and a half before agreeing with prosecutors that Moody designed and mailed the pipe bombs to U.S.

Leroy Moody Jr., the Georgia man accused in the mail-bomb slayings of a civil rights lawyer and a federal judge in 1989, told jurors in St. Paul, Minn., that it was possible that the Ku Klux Klan committed the crimes. In testifying for the third day in his own defense, Moody, 57, again denied sending the mail bombs. Jury deliberations are expected to begin next week after Moody is cross-examined.

The man accused of killing a federal judge and a civil rights attorney with mail bombs ignored his attorney's advice Wednesday and took the witness stand in his own defense, tearfully telling a story of betrayal, depression and retribution. At times rambling and other times breaking down in sobs, Walter Leroy Moody Jr., a 57-year-old Georgia man, admitted falsifying evidence in an attempt to reverse his 1972 federal conviction for bomb possession.