Edward Schad, age 71, is the first Arizona inmate to be executed this year.
Shad was executed today, more than 35 years after he killed a Bisbee man and stole his Cadillac.
According to the Arizona Department of Corrections:
On August 1, 1978, Lorimar Groves, a 74-year-old Bisbee resident, left Bisbee in a new Cadillac on a trip to Everett, Washington, to visit his sister. On August 9, 1978, Groves' badly decomposed body was discovered hidden in the brush just off U.S. Highway 89 south of Prescott. Mr. Groves had been strangled with a rope that was still knotted around his neck. A month later, Schad was stopped for speeding in New York. Schad was driving Mr. Groves' Cadillac, and many of Mr. Groves' personal belongings were in the car.An ADC spokesman says Schad's last meal included a meatball sub sandwich, french fries and ketchup, corn on the cob, cranberry sauce, a slice of apple pie, and a vanilla milkshake.
Although six inmates were executed in 2012, and four in 2011, Schad was the first one executed this year. The next one might not be too far behind -- another inmate, 43-year-old Robert Jones, who killed several people with the help of an accomplice in a pair of armed robberies in Tucson back in 1996.
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