Transcripts for CNN Death Row Stories 20150705 05:13:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
and he pulls out his gun and he walks outside and he starts to shoot people in the head. bobby stephens was walking inside after a smoking break. as i went back into work is when i started hearing the gunshots. i thought somebody dropped something. sylvia crowell who had been cleaning the salad bar was the first person shot. she never saw dunlap coming. ben grant, vacuuming, was killed next. heard the next two shots. the only thing that came to my mind was the kids are out there popping the balloons. colleen o connor saw dunlap approaching. she sank to her knees, clasped her hands together and pleaded for her life, but dunlap fired a bullet through the top of her head. i was loading some utensils into the dishwasher. i turned around and nathan dunlap came through the kitchen door.
and so from there, i was tapped to run for office, and i did. and i won. rhonda was elected to represent aurora in the state legislature. she won in a landslide. rhonda fields becomes a leader on two issues. one, for gun control. very, very, very pro-gun control. two, she s very pro-death penalty. during the time rhonda was pushing for death for her son s killers, nathan dunlap s lawyers continued to work on his appeals. this was not a chance to proof that he was innocent, to set dunlap free. the focus was on his mental health and any other mitigating factors that could have gone into a jury s decision about whether he should be put to death. nathan dunlap s attorneys make a pretty powerful case about bipolarity saying this was not properly explored. in the original case.
african-american men who are on death row for the same thing. cold-blooded murder. and in my view, it has nothing to do with race. it has everything to do about murder. over the next few years, rhonda fields would continue to be an important voice in favor of capital punishment. especially because the dunlap case was about to remerge in the headlines. after nearly 20 years of court proceedings, nathan s defense team was running out of options. in 2012, the tenth circuit court rejected his final appeal, and a year later, the supreme court refused to hear his case. district attorney george brauchler, now in charge of the case took decisive action. we set an execution date for
invariably fail, but i don t think this is just what do i think is the appropriate law to have on the books regarding the death penalty. this is what the state of colorado thinks. by the time the bill failed, both of rhonda s son s killers, sir mario owens, and robert ray, had been sentenced to death. they joined the only other occupant on colorado s death row, nathan dunlap. critics of the death penalty noticed troubling similarities. owens, ray, and dunlap all went to the same high school. they all were young african-american men at the time that they were charged in their cases. and they were all charged in the same exact judicial district. why are these three singled out, and they re the only people on death row? race is extremely important, but it s not important as it relates to this concept of death penalty. we happen to have three