Who was William Emmett LeCroy? Witchcraft-obsessed killer who raped 30-year-old nurse executed after 16 years
The federal government of United States of America executed an inmate on September 22, who raped and murdered a 30-year-old nurse in Georgia 19 years ago and blamed the victim for using witchcraft on him.
The former soldier who was allegedly obsessed with 'witchcraft' killed a Georgia nurse, Joann Lee Tiesler, whom he believed had put a spell on him. On September 22, 50-year-old LeCroy was declared dead at 9.06 pm ET. He received a lethal injection at the same US prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where five others have been executed in 2020 following a 17-year period without a federal execution. LeCroy was the sixth person to be executed by the federal government since July, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
"Today justice was finally served. William LeCroy died a peaceful death in stark contrast to the horror he imposed on my daughter Joann," the victim’s father, Tom Tiesler, said in a statement. "I am unaware that he ever showed any remorse for his evil actions, his life of crime or for the horrific burden he caused Joann’s loved ones," the statement read.
Who was William Emmett LeCroy?
William Emmet LeCroy who served 16 years and 6 months in jail, killed nurse Joann Lee Tiesler after breaking into her home while she was away, and then "attacked her, bound her hands behind her back, strangled her with an electrical cord, and raped her. Then he slashed her throat with a knife and stabbed Tiesler, 30, in the back five times." LeCroy was 34 years old when he committed the hideous crime.
According to Bureau of Prisons: "Inmate Lecroy murdered a 30 year old woman in Georgia. The victim returned home and found Lecroy robbing her house. He sexually assaulted her and stabbed her to death. Lecroy was apprehended two days later in the victim’s car at the Canada border. On March 10, 2004, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia found Lecroy guilty of the following offense: With the Intent to Cause Death and Serious Bodily Harm, did take a Ford Explorer Motor Vehicle that has been Transported, Shipped, and Received in Interstate Commerce from the Person and Presence of Joann Lee Tielser by Force and Violence Resulting in her Death, and he was sentenced to Death."
According to an appellee's brief filed in 2013, LeCroy's defense attorney hired a psychiatrist to evaluate LeCroy. During the exam, LeCroy told the psychiatrist, "he believed that Joann Tiesler was the babysitter who sexually abused him twenty years before and that he blamed the babysitter for many of the problems that he had had as an adult."
LeCroy who was on supervised probation release after 10 years in state and federal prison for child molestation, statutory rape, burglary and aggravated assault. He also stole Tiesler's vehicle and headed to the Canadian border in order to escape from the country, where he was arrested, the release says. "Because of his beliefs in witchcraft, defendant (LeCroy) came to believe that the babysitter had placed a spell on him, and that he would have to force the babysitter (Ms. Tiesler) to reverse the spell. His conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal, and his requests for collateral relief were rejected by every court that considered them."