Raymond Lee Stewart

Raymond Lee Stewart (January 21, 1952 – September 18, 1996) was an American robber and spree killer who murdered six people during a week-long Rampage in Rockford, Illinois and Beloit, Wisconsin in 1981.

Stewart was born in Burlington, North Carolina, in 1952, and was raised in an abusive environment.

According to Faith Crocker, one of Stewart's sisters, his father frequently physically and sexually abused his nine children and threw Stewart out of the house when he was 14 years old, telling him to never come back.

Stewart dropped out of high school and drifted through several jobs.

At some point, Stewart moved to Rockford, Illinois.

In 1973, he committed several robberies.

He later pleaded guilty to four counts of armed robbery and was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison.

An additional robbery count was dropped due to a lack of evidence, and Stewart was paroled after serving six years.

In December 1980, Stewart pulled a gun on a landlord who had refused to return a $50 security deposit.

A month later, he learned that his girlfriend had given birth to their daughter and then had her tubes tied without telling him.

Both events culminated in Stewart becoming increasingly angry.

Years later, he said that he also wanted revenge for his prior robbery conviction.

On the afternoon of January 27, 1981, Stewart shot and killed Willie Fredd, a 54-year-old store owner who had witnessed one of the robberies committed by Stewart in 1973, and his stock boy, 20-year-old Albert Pearson, in Rockford's west side, using a .38-caliber revolver.

The next day, Stewart shot and killed Kevin Kaiser, an 18-year-old service station attendant, at a gas station two miles away.

Within 24 hours, Stewart killed Kenny Foust, a 35-year-old service station attendant.

Stewart's Rampage ended at a shopping mall in Beloit, Wisconsin, where Richard Boeck, 21, and Donald Rains, 26, were both found shot in the head inside a RadioShack.

Stewart had led the two men to the back of the store before shooting them multiple times.

After police connected the murders to Stewart, he was tracked down and arrested in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 21, 1981.

Stewart was tried and convicted of three of the four murders he committed in Illinois and for the two murders he committed in Wisconsin.

He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the murders he committed in Wisconsin and sentenced to death for the murders he committed in Illinois.

During one of his murder trials in April 1982, Stewart fled the courtroom and attempted to hide in an oilcan.

He sustained a shoulder wound during his escape attempt.

After exhausting all of his appeals, Stewart had an execution date set.

At a clemency hearing with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, Stewart submitted a 15 minute taped statement.

He claimed that he hated white people at the time of the murders, since white people were responsible for the deaths of his childhood idols, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Some noted that this did not fully explain what he had done since Stewart's first two victims, Fredd and Pearson, were both black.

Stewart also mentioned the incidents with his girlfriend and landlord, as well as his anger over his robbery conviction.

After explaining himself, Stewart expressed remorse, saying "All these crimes were morally and legally wrong. I want to apologize."

He admitted that he personally believed that he deserved what he was getting, saying "The victims had not done anything to me. It was as if I was playing games with the police. In my way of thinking, I deserve the death penalty."

At his clemency hearing, Constance Mitchell, the cousin of Willie Fredd and mother of Albert Pearson, supported Stewart's bid to receive a positive recommendation from the board for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison without parole, as she did not believe in capital punishment.

"I believe with all my heart that my son is in heaven," Mitchell said.

She said she opposed the death penalty and that only God has the right to take a life away.

"I must learn to forgive him or I will carry this pain with me until I die," she said.

However, most of the other relatives of Stewart's victims were adamantly opposed to clemency.

"Please, don't let this man escape his punishment," said Willie Fredd's son, Alex Fredd.

"He deserves the death penalty. He has to pay for what he did. Not to my father, but to me."

Alex said he became an alcoholic, dropped out of school, and watched the health of his mother and grandmother worsen after Stewart murdered Willie.

Alex said he often thought about how he learned about what happened.

He said he was in his biology class at Rock Valley College when he was pulled out and told that his father and cousin had been shot.

When Alex went back to school he could not concentrate well, and ended up failing to obtain a degree in business administration.

Stewart was sentenced to death for the murders he committed in Illinois and was executed in 1996 at Stateville Correctional Center.