37 years, eight months and 22 days.
That’s how long Vicki Lynne Hoskinson’s († 8) family said they had to wait for “final justice”. The girl was murdered by Frank Atwood in 1984. Now the US state of Arizona has executed the 66-year-old with lethal injection for his crime.
Photo: PRIVATE
” data-zoom-src=”https://bilder.bild.de/fotos/sie-liebte-spaghetti-baseball-und-barbie-puppen-vicky-hoskinson-bd899f509f5549d6b90f7fc2671722ba-80343358/Bild/4.bild.jpg” /> She loved spaghetti, baseball and Barbie dolls: Vicky HoskinsonPhoto: PRIVATE
Atwood, a convicted pedophile, is targeted by the investigators, claiming until his execution that he had nothing to do with the girl’s death. However: The investigators find paint residue from Vicky’s bicycle on his car. In 1987 the junkie was sentenced to death.
Flashback, September 17, 1984: Little Vicky sends a birthday greeting to an aunt, then goes home. However, the child with the auburn hair never gets there. The family finds the pink bike in the middle of the street. Witnesses will say they saw a man in a dark-colored car driving up next to the child. Seven months later, the sad certainty: a hiker finds the skeletonized body of the eight-year-old.
A sandwich as a hangman’s meal
US media documented the last day in the life of the child killer. At 9:05 a.m., Frank Atwood got his last meal: a wild disgusting wheat bread sandwich with salami, mustard, peanut butter and jelly. Plus a bag of chips and a pack of juice.
After the Supreme Court denied a plea for clemency, the 66-year-old was led into the execution room at Arizona State Penitentiary. The death row inmate’s last words: “I pray that the Lord will have mercy on us all.”
About 40 people attended the execution, including Atwood’s wife, whom he is said to have smiled at several times. At 10:10 a.m. the lethal injection was scheduled, at 10:16 a.m. Frank Atwood was pronounced dead. He died in front of several of Vicky Hoskinson’s relatives.
Photo: Ross D. Franklin/AP
” data-zoom-src=”https://bilder.bild.de/fotos/debbie-carlson-die-mutter-der-kleine-vicky-saite-nach-the-execution-we-wanted-not-that- a–70e8c972e9bb46038fa0a6ae4f7a6b95-80343396/image/4.image.jpg”/> Debbie Carlson, the mother of little Vicky, said after the execution: “We didn’t want another child to have to face this monster”.Photo: Ross D. Franklin/AP
While opponents and supporters of the death penalty protested in front of the gates, Debbie Carlson, the mother of the murdered, held a press conference while still in prison. “Vicky was a fun-loving girl with an infectious laugh that made people’s hearts melt,” she recalled of her daughter.
Commenting on the killing of Frank Atwood, she said: “We support the death penalty because we didn’t want another child to face this monster. We wanted to make sure other families were spared and didn’t have to experience what we have experienced over the past thirty-seven and a half years.”
