The Arizona Supreme Court have issued two Warrants of Execution for men who have sat on death row
for decades.
The first execution, will take place on Wednesday, May 11th at 10:00 a.m. This marks the first execution the state of Arizona has performed since 2014. The state will execute Clarence W. Dixon.
Dixon had been previously convicted of various sex crimes. He was sentenced to death after he broke into the apartment of a 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin in 1978. Bowdoin had just returned from a night out with friends when Dixon sexually assaulted Bowdoin, and then killed her. Bowdoin was found strangled and stabbed to death in her apartment.
The Bowdoin case went cold for many years, until advances in DNA profiling became available and investigators were able to identify a suspect.
Dixon was indicted for Bowdoin’s murder in 2002, and was found guilty and sentenced to death.
In addition to Dixon’s pending execution, the state is also moving forward with a second execution in the
coming weeks. The state recently announced that a Warrant of Execution for Frank Jarvis Atwood had been issued. Under the Warrant of Execution, Atwood is set to be executed on June 8, 2022.
Atwood, who had a long criminal history against children, in September 1984 kidnapped and killed an 8-year-old girl named Vicki Lynn Hoskinson.
At the time of Hoskinson’s kidnapping, she was walking down the street to mail a birthday card to her aunt. Witnesses were able to identify Atwood at the scene and police found evidence of pink paint from Hoskinson’s bike on Atwood’s car. Atwood left Hoskinson’s body in the desert, and fled to Texas where he was arrested.
At the time of the murder, Atwood was in violation of his California parole when he traveled to Tucson. He had previously been convicted of lewd acts and kidnapping against an 8-year-old boy.
Carrying Out the Execution
Both Dixon and Atwood have the choice on their type of execution, via lethal injection or lethal gas. Dixon reportedly declined to choose. As a result, the default method is death by lethal injection.
Atwood has until May 20 to choose between lethal injection or lethal gas.
There are currently 112 prisoners are on Arizona’s death row. 109 serving their death sentence in Arizona are men, only three are women.
