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Young mom begged in vain for her life

Killer drops appeals, asks for execution in electric chair

Lisa Crider cried and pleaded in vain for her life. She was killed on Mother's Day 1997.

• Killer picks electric chair

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RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- Weeping as one of her captors bound her with duct tape, the young woman made a final desperate plea for her life, telling the two men she was a mother.

Unmoved, Brandon Hedrick and Trevor Jones forced Lisa Crider to a remote bank of the James River.

"Do what you gotta do," Jones told his friend. Hedrick squeezed the trigger, firing a shotgun blast into Crider's face.

Crider's body was discovered that evening -- on Mother's Day.

"The sum of Lisa was roses and doves -- she was peace loving, no gossip, no maliciousness," said her mother, Dale Alexander, 55, of Altavista. "She would try to protect anybody around her."

Barring intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court or Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Hedrick will be executed Thursday for the rape and murder of 23-year-old Crider.

Hedrick chose the electric chair instead of lethal injection, and would be the first person in the United States to be executed by electrocution in more than two years.

Hedrick and Jones, then 18, spent the night of May 10, 1997, drinking, smoking marijuana and crack cocaine, and employing the services of several prostitutes, according to court documents.

Accosted at gunpoint

While cruising around Lynchburg, they spotted Crider walking along a road. Jones knew who Crider was and believed her boyfriend sold crack, and they decided to rob her because they thought she might have drugs. They forced her at gunpoint into Jones' truck, where prosecutors say Hedrick raped and sodomized her.

Later that night, they stopped at the James River and Crider was murdered.

Hedrick and Jones were apprehended in Nebraska. Hedrick was sentenced to death in 1998; Jones was sentenced to life in prison.

In 2002, Hedrick asked a judge to drop his appeals. In 2003, he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that he was a changed man and hoped to inspire other inmates.

"I know what I was involved in was totally wrong and I should have had no involvement in doing any of it. I do believe that I need to be punished, but I don't know what my punishment should be," he said. "I've judged myself harder than most people would."

More recently, Hedrick turned down a request for a new interview, according to his attorney, Robert Lee.

The defense attorney is seeking a hearing to determine whether Hedrick is mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional.

Low IQ?

In Virginia, those who score a 70 or below on an IQ test before they turn 18 are generally considered retarded. At Hedrick's sentencing, a court-appointed clinical psychologist, Dr. Gary Hawk, testified that Hedrick had an IQ of 76, which was "far below average" but "not so low as to suggest mental retardation."

Lee says that, taking into account a standard margin of error and the passage of time, it is possible that Hedrick's IQ may have fallen below 70. Hedrick also has a history of learning difficulties, the lawyer said.

"It's possible that this 76 is a low score for him. It could also be at the highest range of what he could score -- that's the problem," Lee said.

Hedrick's current lawyers also have filed a clemency petition with the governor, contending that his trial attorneys were inadequate and ill-prepared, and spent far too little time working on the case.

The state argues that Hedrick deserves to die for his crimes.

"Brandon Hedrick brutally tortured Lisa Crider and murdered her execution-style," said J. Tucker Martin, spokesman for Attorney General Bob McDonnell. "A jury decided he deserved the death penalty, and justice will be carried out on July 20."

Crider's son, Tracy, now 14, also wants Hedrick's life to end, but he was deemed too young to witness the execution, Alexander said.

"He does want to see justice done," she said.