Alfredo Prieto: Serial Killer Executed In Virginia


Alfredo Prieto, a serial killer, was executed in Virginia on Thursday. The convicted murderer claimed he was mentally retarded, and such a claim could have resulted in the death sentence being overturned. The last minute attempt at an appeal failed and the 49-year-old man was subjected to lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center.

The serial killer was injected with a lethal combination of three different drugs, including pentobarbital. The Virginia correctional center received the difficult to acquire pentobarbital from Texas, MSN reported. Alfredo Prieto reportedly showed no emotion as he was strapped onto the gurney for the execution.

“I would like to say thanks to all my lawyers, all my supporters and all my family members,” Prieto said, before adding, “Get this over with.”

serial killer executed virginia
Alfredo Prieto, a serial killer, was executed in Virginia on Thursday.

Prieto came to the United States from El Salvador; it is not known if he was a legal or illegal immigrant. In 2010 the serial killer was sentenced to death in Virginia for the murder of a young couple 20 years prior. Warren Fulton III, 22, and his girlfriend, Rachel Raver, also 22, were found shot to death in the woods. The couple had been last seen at a Washington, D.C. night spot several days before their bodies were discovered.

Before being convicted of the Virginia murders via DNA evidence, Alfredo was on death row in California. He had been convicted of the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. Officials in California decided that Virginia was far more likely to actually carry out the execution of the serial killer; as such, Prieto was extradited and sent to the Greensville Correctional Center.

Prieto had also reportedly been linked to six other murders in Virginia and California. He was never prosecuted for those crimes because a death sentence had already been levied, the Washington Post reported. He was the first convict to be executed in Virginia in almost three years. The last execution to take place in the state occurred in January 2013. Robert Gleason Jr.’s death sentence was carried out after he was placed in the electric chair, an alternative to lethal injection available to inmates. Gleason was serving a life sentence for a murder he committed in 2007. He killed his cellmate in 2009 and was sentenced to death for the crime.

Lethal injection rules in Virginia require the use of pentobarbital, which is a sedative, to be administered at the beginning of the execution process. The drug rocuronium bromide is then given to halt the breathing of the inmate. Potassium chloride is then administered to stop the beating of the convict’s heart. Alfredo Prieto’s attorneys filed a lawsuit earlier this week to halt the execution. The attorneys wanted the court to force Virginia officials to disclose additional information about the pentobarbital it received from Texas. The attorneys maintained the shipment was issued because another sedative the state had planned to use was expired.

Prieto’s attorneys wanted to force Texas officials to reveal the name of the compounding pharmacy supplying the pentobarbital, a detail the state was permitted by law to keep secret. The defense attorney said they were concerned about the quality of the drugs and wanted to make sure the serial killer would not be subjected to “gratuitous and unnecessary pain.”

In another attempt to avoid the serial killer’s execution sentence from being carried out, Prieto’s attorney argued to the Supreme Court that the intellectually disabled measurement process used during the trial was unconstitutional. Last year the high court ruled in a Florida case that “rigid cutoffs” on IQ tests cannot determine whether or not an individual is mentally retarded.

[Photo via Shutterstock.com]

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