The passenger manifests for the night train to Nowheresville is light this year – so far.
Just 10 names are on the list of convicted killers the United States plan to execute in 2025. No doubt there will be more, but for now, it’s just the Terrible Ten.
The roster of doom comes as outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden commuted the sentences to life in prison for a slew of federal death row prisoners, including several child killers. He left a trio on death row.
Only three killers were snubbed by the outgoing commander-in-chief’s largesse: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who along with his brother killed three people in 2013; Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, and Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015.
President-elect Donald Trump has hinted broadly he wants to use the threat of the death penalty to combat crime and the drugs flooding into the U.S.
“We’ve never had [such] massive amounts of drugs pouring into our country,” he said in June 2024. “And by the way, you’ll never solve the problem without the death penalty.”
Here is the roster of the doomed:
MARION BOWMAN JR. – JAN. 31
SOUTH CAROLINA
411: Bowman is slated to be the third person executed in the Palmetto State since September 2024. He was sentenced to die for the murder of Kandee Martin in 2001. The killer and his accomplices were planning to rob a house but suspected Martin was “wearing a wire.” She was shot in the head and her body was stuffed in the trunk of a car, which was then set on fire.
STEVEN NELSON – FEB. 5
TEXAS
411: In 2012, Nelson was sentenced to die for the murder of Rev. Clint Dobson at NorthPointe Baptist Church. He then attacked the preacher’s assistant, Judy Elliott, leaving her unrecognizable. Nelson then stole Elliott’s car and went on a shopping spree with her credit cards, buying shoes and cheap jewelry.
RICHARD TABLER – FEB. 13
TEXAS
411: Tabler is a spree killer who murdered four people around Thanksgiving Day in 2004. The killer and an accomplice shot and killed two men at a nightclub in Killeen, Texas. And two days later, Tabler murdered two teen girls who worked as dancers at the same nightclub where he committed the double murder. His accomplice was jailed for life. Tabler will get the needle.
DAVID LEONARD WOOD – MARCH 13
TEXAS
411: El Paso serial killer Wood (The Desert Killer) gets the big adios almost 40 years after he was sentenced to die for the sex slayings of young women on the Texas-Mexico border. He later dumped their bodies in the desert. Now 67, Wood maintains he is innocent and is appealing his 1992 death penalty conviction. The young girls were in their teens and early 20s.
MOISES SANDOVAL MENDOZA – APRIL 23
TEXAS
411: In 2004, Mendoza kidnapped, sexually assaulted and strangled to death Rachel Tolleson. He then burned the body. To fit him up for the death penalty, the prosecution proved an escalating pattern of violence by Mendoza that included several rapes and robberies. His family described Mendoza as a caring person who began to act differently in his late teenage years as he manifested symptoms of deep depression.
PERCY HUTTON – JUNE 18
OHIO
411: Hutton finds himself in the Buckeye State death house for the murder of Derek “Ricky” Mitchell and attempted murder of Samuel Simmons Jr. Hutton, 63, shot his friends Mitchell and Simmons after accusing Mitchell of stealing a sewing machine, in which he had stashed $750.
SAMUEL MORELAND – JULY 30
OHIO
411: Moreland was sentenced to death for the November 1985 murders of his girlfriend Glenna Green and Green’s daughter Lana Green. Green’s grandchildren Datrin Talbott, Datwan Talbott and Voilana Green were also murdered. Three other children were beaten and/or shot and left for dead.
DOUGLAS COLEY – SEPT. 24
OHIO
411: Coley’s journey on the gurney comes as a result of the Jan. 3, 1997 murder in Toledo of 21-year-old Samar El-Okdi. Coley and an accomplice abducted the female victim, then shot her in the head and stole her car. The 45-year-old killer was also convicted of attempted murder in a similarly violent carjacking just days before.
TIMOTHY COLEMAN – OCT. 30
OHIO
411: Coleman was convicted of murdering Melinda Stevens on Jan. 2, 1996. Prosecutors said Coleman shot Stevens twice in the head in a Dayton alley to prevent her from testifying against him in a drug trafficking case. Prosecutor Stephen Schumaker said: “If you kill a witness, we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law and try to put you in the electric chair.”
KAREEM M. JACKSON – DEC. 10
OHIO
411: Jackson, 47, was sentenced to death for the March 25, 1997 Columbus murders of two men whom he shot in the head so they wouldn’t go to the cops. The killer and four accomplices set out to rob an apartment and things went off the rails ending in bloodshed. Jackson told an accomplice at the murder scene: “They know my name. I have to kill them.”