LOS ANGELES.- The Arizona authorities executed Richard Kenneth Djerf by lethal injection on Fridaywho spent more than thirty years in prison for him brutal murder in 1993 of four members of a Latino family that shocked the community.
Djerf, 55, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the torture and murder of his co-worker Albert Luna, his wife Patriciaand of his two children, Rochelle, 18, and Damien, 5 years old.
The Prosecutor’s Office assured that the attack was motivated by revenge. Djerf blamed Luna for stealing from him so he decided to make her pay.
Djerf raped Luna’s daughter and tortured the other victims before killing them. Then he burned the bodies.
At the time of the trial, the man waived his right to a lawyer and defended himself, which ended in the maximum sentence. After the conviction,His lawyers assumed his defense and appealed the sentence. After decades of litigation, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the Djerf’s death sentence earlier this year.
Murderer of Latino family did not ask for clemency
Finally Djerf did not ask for mercy to the government of Arizona.
“There are no words to undo what I did,” Djerf wrote in a final note of regret cited by the newspaper. Mountain Daily Star.
“I have carried that weight for 32 years and I know that the pain I caused can never be repaired. “I’m sorry,” he added.
With the death of Djerf, Arizona has executed two inmates so far in 2025.
Arizona had suspended executions after the death of Joseph Wood in 2014, during which the condemned man gasped for almost two hours, the state revised its protocols and resumed the punishment from 2022.