Charles Rodman Campbell - Washington State’s last hanging.

Charles Rodman Campbell - Washington State’s last hanging.

At 12.08 a.m. on Friday May 27, 1994, the State of Washington conducted its last execution by hanging at the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. 

Charles Rodman Campbell, age 39, was put to death for the 1982 murders of two women and a child. He appealed his conviction and sentence for 12 years. 

Campbell had a choice between hanging and lethal injection, but he refused to make that choice, so under state law at the time, hanging was the default method. 

After this, in accordance with a law passed in 1996, the state turned to lethal injection as the default method, unless the defendant chooses hanging. 

Campbell refused to cooperate with the execution. He had to be removed from his cell with pepper spray. It took prison officials 90 seconds to place a hood on his head and to fix the noose before the trap was opened. 

Campbell was unable/refused to stand in the execution chamber so he was strapped to a collapse board (visible in the photo of the Walla Walla gallows) to keep him upright on the trap.  

Campbell was 6 feet 2 ½ inches tall and weighing 224 lbs. A drop of 5 feet 7 inches was given and the submental position (i.e. under the jaw) used for the knot.  Heartbeat continued for six minutes after suspension and the C2 vertebra was found to have fractured.

The execution was reported in the Seattle Times as follows :

“Campbell, 39, was hanged at 12:08 a.m. yesterday for the 1982 revenge killings of Renae Wicklund, 31; her 8-year-old daughter, Shannah; and neighbor Barbara Hendrickson, 51, in Clearview, Snohomish County. He was pronounced dead six minutes later. 

The coroner later reported Campbell's neck and spinal cord were broken, and he died within seconds.

Prison officials confirmed late Thursday that Campbell had to be subdued with pepper spray before he could be moved to the death chamber's holding cell.

Yesterday, prison officials disclosed that they'd found a 3 1/2- to 4-inch piece of metal that apparently was being honed into a blade in his cell; a 4-inch lag bolt, used in construction to hold decking together, that also had been sharpened; a 2-inch nail; a 2-inch screw; and a small spring from a ballpoint pen, said Mary Christensen, an assistant to prison Superintendent Tana Wood.

"He had been storing them in his body cavity," Christensen said. "We searched his cell during his yard time and nothing was found."

Prison officials are still uncertain how he obtained the items, which clearly were weapons, she said.

When guards arrived to take Campbell to the death chamber, he lay on the floor of his small cell, ignoring repeated orders to stand and present himself to be cuffed before the door was opened as well as repeated warnings that he would be sprayed, Christensen said.

"He did not respond. It (the spray) is a protection for the staff because if you just walked in there he could just rise up and attack them," 

she said.

The contraband was secreted in the framework of his bunk, but Campbell could have easily reached the items once he'd gotten to his feet, Christensen said.

Christensen also disclosed that Campbell's walk to the gallows did not go as smoothly as was initially reported.

He died strapped to a board that held his body rigid so he would not collapse en route to the gallows or while waiting for the trapdoor to spring.

Prison spokesman Veltry Johnson initially said Campbell was shaky and having trouble staying on his feet.

But Christensen said yesterday that description was based on a misunderstanding that occurred as Superintendent Wood hurriedly relayed information to Johnson immediately after the hanging.

In fact, Campbell "resisted passively," Christensen said.

"He was conscious, but he was being passive, like, `If you want to move me, move me.' "

Campbell was strapped to the board in the holding cell and then carried out to the gallows, Christensen said.

She also clarified the movements media witnesses observed while guards were putting the hood and noose over Campbell's head.

"There have been a lot of questions about why it took so long to get the hood on," Christensen said.

At least two attempts were made, she said. Campbell turned his head to the left during the first attempt to put the hood on, and a guard pulled it off again and then tugged it over Campbell's bushy, shoulder-length hair.

"The superintendent says no one really analyzed it up there. They got the hood on up there as fast as they could and believed (the movement) was more like a reflex or a reaction than a struggle," Christensen said.

Walla Walla County Coroner Stephen Ames said an autopsy done by King County Medical Examiner Donald Reay showed that Campbell's spinal-cord injuries were more severe than what happened to Westley Allen Dodd, who was executed Jan. 5, 1993.

It is the severing of the spinal cord that instantly kills the hanged, Ames said.

Ames declined to speculate on the morality of hanging as a form of capital punishment.

"It's quick and painless. Whether or not it's cruel or unusual is not for me to say," he said.

Funeral arrangements for Campbell are being handled by the Colonial-DeWitt Funeral Home in Walla Walla. The funeral home was next up on the county coroner's rotation list for handling such duties.

Funeral-home owner Alan Ray said Campbell's body was to be returned to the funeral home last night and it would be Monday at the earliest before the arrangements were made for cremation or burial.”

Campbell was convicted of the April 14, 1982, revenge killing of Renae Wicklund, her eight-year old daughter Shannah, and a neighbour, Barbara Hendrickson, who was unfortunate enough to be in her house at the time and had also testified against him on the rape charge.  

He had cut the throats on Barbara and Shannah and beaten, raped and strangled Renae, before cutting her throat.  The murders occurred while he was on day release from prison for a previous serious sexual assault on Renae Wicklund.  

She had testified that Campbell had attacked and sodomized her and held a knife to her baby's throat in December 1974, for which he was sentenced to 30 years in prison at the Monroe Correctional Institute.  

In 1981 he was allowed out of prison on work release, despite his very poor behaviour both while incarcerated and on work release.  His former wife testified that he had twice raped her while out of prison.

Renae Wicklund had not been informed of Campbell’s release and was still living in the same house in Clearview, Washington.  He had been seen snooping around Renae’s house on that day by neighbours. 

He was arrested a week after the murders and a pair of Renae’s earrings were found on him.  He had no defence to offer at trial in November 1982.  The jury unanimously recommended the death penalty.