21 April 1992 – Robert Alton Harris
The gas chamber marked California’s return to the death penalty in 1992 – the first execution for over 25 years and certainly since the sentence was reinstated in 1976.
It was the dubious honour of callous killer Robert Alton Harris to christen the noxious enclosure, after he was found guilty of the senseless murder of two young lads.
Descent into hell
There’s a school of thought that believes psychopaths are born with killer tendencies. But it’s nurture that ultimately morphs those tendencies into full-blown depravity. If that is the case, then Harris didn’t have a hope in hell. Even in the womb he was a victim, having been born three months premature after his mum got kicked in the stomach by his surly dad.
By the age of two, he’d suffered a broken jaw at the hands of his nutter of a dad. And he’d be forced to run outside and hide within 30 minutes, or his dad vowed to shoot his children down. So was it any wonder his destiny was to descend into killer?
Eats, shoots and leaves
And so to the murder; Harris abducted two 16-year-old boys who worked at a fast-food outlet, along with his brother Daniel. He then proceeded to persecute them before burying a bullet in both their brains. He then calmly finished off the burgers he’d stolen off them.
The brother had no hand in the murders, however later that day the two of them did do a bank over. But the real clincher was that Harris had already done time for manslaughter. His original crime had been deemed manslaughter, because he heaped his defence on the fact that he’d been protecting a woman against her husband. Of course, that didn’t explain why the first victim was beaten to death as well as doused in lighter fluid in an attempt to set him alight. Harris bizarrely even cut the victim’s hair off.
The fact that Harris had previous meant that his card was marked. As a result, the punishment was death. He was sent to the gas chamber and poisoned to death.
Of all the profundities Harris could have reserved for his last words on this mortal coil, he plumped for a quote from that seminal film, ‘Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey’
Also on this day
21 April 1876 – Johnny Dolan
21 April 2006 – Willie Brown Jnr
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May 5 at 1:30 am
I guess the only problem I have with the punishment my father received is this. Can we be absoulutely sure that the man who was executed in 1992 was infact the same man that committed the hanus crime in 1978. Do I believe that Capital Punishment is a necessary evil. Yes, I actually do. But, at some point, we as a society must come to the realization that the human body has the ablility to heal itself. Thus, the mental defect in my fathers brain could have been corrected those many years later when he was put to death. So the question is, are we punishing the man for what he did, or what he was? Can we still hold a person who was sick at the time the crime was committed guilty if he is later cured of the sickness that compelled him to commit these crimes?
July 21 at 11:37 pm
Look Robert I understand that this man was your father and it must be a hard thing for you to have to live through life with the attachment of what he did, and the end result of that. And I can even understand the point that your bringing up. But you have to realize the impact of what he did affected so many people in such a way that he not only destroyed the lives of those two young men but also their loved ones. My grandmother never recoverd from the death of her son, it sapped the life right out of her and that effected everyone that she loved and loved her. I don’t place blame anymore and maybe your dad is in peace.Something he might not have had in this life. But don’t think that for one minuet that he was so ill as not to understand what he was doing. Michael Baker begged for his life with tears, sobbing. He was sixteen. And didn’t receive the mercy he deserved. And neither did your father. That may sound harsh and my apologies to you but its hard for me to hear every ones excuses for what he did. Its easy to focus on the Person who committed the crimes and very easy to forget the person the crimes were committed against. I was five and my uncle john was a happy teen of the few memories that I have of that age his smile is there in my mind and I miss him. So maybe instead of rationalizing his actions, because you are not him and he is not you. Maybe you can help heal old wound,s that he could never account for, and with his dying breath never did. These Scars run DEEP.
October 20 at 4:24 pm
It doesn’t matter who your father had become after brutally murdering those two boys. It doesn’t matter that he was “sick” at the time. The punishment he received, and it was not “cruel and unusual punishment” as was his cry, was the consequence for taking two 16 yr. old boys’ lives. What WAS cruel was him taking their lives away through murder, and changing their families lives forever. If I remember right, John Mayeski’s mother passed away about a year before she saw justice for her son.
When this happened, I was 20, and I lived in Mira Mesa at the time, a mile from where your father, and the boys lived. There has never been a day before that, or since that I wish I could go back and change. It made an impact on me, and I will never forget it. You will never know the sick feeling I had the morning I got up and read the newspaper. My mother didn’t realize that she knew the mother of one of the boys until I told her. I feel sick just having to type that.
Prior to this, I had never been a supporter of the death penalty. Since that time, I am a strong advocate for the death penalty. It caused me to think about the victims of crimes, the true victims. Personally, I’m sick to death of hearing about the criminals, and how their lives have changed since they murdered an innocent person. It’s not about who they are now, it’s about the crimes they committed, and the fact that you must pay the consequences for the crimes you commit.
The punishment your father received was just. Be thankful he had time to say good bye to his loved ones. John Mayeski, and Michael Baker never had that opportunity because your father took that away from them. Be thankful he didn’t have someone telling him he could go, and then shoot him in the back when he was running away, like he did to one of the boys.
November 12 at 11:08 pm
Too bad he didnt have to suffer. They should torture killers and use them for medical research