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Arizona Executes Richard Djerf for 1993 Phoenix Family Murders

The lethal injection capped a decades-long case in a state whose execution procedures have drawn intense scrutiny.

Overview

  • Officials pronounced Djerf dead at 10:40 a.m. Friday at the state prison in Florence after a pentobarbital injection.
  • Corrections officials said staff made multiple attempts to establish IV access due to nonoptimal veins, with insertion from 10:05 to 10:21 a.m.
  • Djerf pleaded guilty in the 1990s to killing Patricia and Albert Luna Sr., their daughter Rochelle, and 5-year-old Damien in a revenge-driven home invasion.
  • He declined to seek clemency and, in a handwritten note weeks earlier, apologized and said he hoped his death would bring some measure of peace.
  • The execution was Arizona’s second this year under revised protocols following past problems with lethal injections, and the state reports 108 inmates on death row.