Billy Bailey
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Billy Bailey (1946/47 - January 25, 1996) was a convicted murderer hanged in 1996.
Assigned to the Plummer House, a work release facility in Wilmington, Delaware, Baily escaped, appearing at the home of his foster sister, Sue Ann Coker, in Cheswold, Delaware, saying he was upset and was not going back. He and Charles Coker, his foster sister's husband, went on an errand in Coker's truck. Bailey asked Coker to stop at a package store. Bailey entered the store and robbed the clerk at gunpoint. Emerging from the store with a pistol in one hand and a bottle in the other, Bailey told Coker that the police would be arriving, and asked to be dropped at Lambertson's Corner, about one and one-half miles away. Once there, Baily entered the farmhouse of Gilbert Lambertson, age 80, and his wife, Clara Lambertson, age 73. Bailey shot Gilbert Lambertson twice in the chest with a pistol and once in the head with the Lambertsons' shotgun. He shot Clara Lambertson once in the shoulder with the pistol and once in the abdomen and once in the neck with the shotgun. Both Lambertsons died. Baily arranged their bodies in chairs, then fled from the scene. He was spotted by a Delaware State Police helicopter as he ran across the Lambertsons' field. He attempted to shoot the helicopter co-pilot with the pistol, and was arrested.
He was found guilty of the murders in 1980. After his conviction, the jury held that the crimes "were outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman" and recommended the death penalty.
After his appeals failed, Bailey was executed by the state of Delaware in 1996. He refused to exercise his option to choose lethal injection as a method of execution and was instead hanged. He became the third person to be hanged in the United States since the 1976 Supreme Court decision Gregg v. Georgia allowed executions, halted since 1967, to resume.
Saxton Lambertson, one of the victims' sons, was present at the execution. Asked for his feelings, he stated that his parents "were very innocent people. They were old and small and he was a big brute. He chose to shoot them, so he chose to die."
Chris Lambertson, the victims' great-grandson, stated "Just because Billy Bailey wanted their truck, he killed my great-grandparents. Without a doubt, he should die."