In 1988 a judge in Texas sent a drifter named Paul Dennis Reid to prison for twenty years. Seven years later a parole board set the 27-year-old serial armed robber free. Reid left the state in 1995 for Nashville, Tennessee in hopes of becoming a country western star. Instead of performing at the Grand Ole Opry, Mr. Reid ended up washing dishes at a number of Shoney's restaurants in and around Nashville.
On February 16, 1997, the day after the manager of a Shoney's fired him, Paul Dennis Reid walked into Captain D's restaurant in Nashville and shot, execution style, two employees. On March 23, 1997 he murdered three McDonald's workers in Hermitage, Tennessee. A month later Reid killed two Baskin-Robbins employees in nearby Clarksville.
Police officers arrested Reid in June 1997 in Cheatham County, Tennessee. He was taken into custody while trying to kidnap one of his former Shoney's restaurant bosses.
Convicted of seven first-degree murders in 1999, Paul Dennis Reid landed on death row at the Riverbend Maximum prison in Nashville. He claimed that the "military government" had him under constant surveillance and was the force behind his murder convictions. Reid said his trials had been "scripted" by the government.
Immediately after the serial killer's convictions his team of lawyers began appealing his seven death sentences on the grounds he was too mentally ill to execute. By 2002 several execution dates had come and gone. It was around this time that Reid informed his attorneys to stop appealing his case. Arguing that the death row prisoner was not mentally competent, and therefore couldn't determine his own fate, his attorneys ignored his request.
In 2003, to a newspaper reporter with Clarksville's Leaf-Chronicle, Reid said he had "sincere, profound empathy" for his victims' families. (I'm sure that made them feel better.) "I would say to them that if I have violated you or offended you in any manner, I plead for your forgiveness."
A pair of Tennessee courts in 2008 ruled that Mr. Reid was mentally sound enough to be executed. Four years later the state supreme court declared that Reid's attorneys could not continue to appeal against the condemned man's wishes. By now he had been on death fourteen years.
At six o'clock on the evening of Friday, November 1, 2013, after being treated two weeks at a Nashville hospital for an undisclosed illness, Paul Dennis Reid died on his own. He was fifty-five years old.
Doyle Brown, the father of one of Reid's victims at the McDonald's in Hermitage, said this to an Associated Press reporter who asked him how he felt about the death of the man who had murdered his daughter: "I'm glad he's dead. I wish it happened through the criminal justice system several years ago rather than him just getting sick and dying."
Members of Reid's family, people who fought for years to keep him from being executed, mourned his death. They didn't view their relative as an evil cold-blooded serial killer but as a victim of severe mental illness.
Since sane people can fake mental illness and crazy people can on occasion act perfectly normal, Mr. Reid's true nature will remain a mystery. However, since most mentally ill people are not violent, the fact that some are violent suggests that crazy people can also be evil. Mentally ill or not, Dennis Reid was evil. Therefore the legal effort to save his life was a waste of time and money. Attorneys should have better things to do.
On February 16, 1997, the day after the manager of a Shoney's fired him, Paul Dennis Reid walked into Captain D's restaurant in Nashville and shot, execution style, two employees. On March 23, 1997 he murdered three McDonald's workers in Hermitage, Tennessee. A month later Reid killed two Baskin-Robbins employees in nearby Clarksville.
Police officers arrested Reid in June 1997 in Cheatham County, Tennessee. He was taken into custody while trying to kidnap one of his former Shoney's restaurant bosses.
Convicted of seven first-degree murders in 1999, Paul Dennis Reid landed on death row at the Riverbend Maximum prison in Nashville. He claimed that the "military government" had him under constant surveillance and was the force behind his murder convictions. Reid said his trials had been "scripted" by the government.
Immediately after the serial killer's convictions his team of lawyers began appealing his seven death sentences on the grounds he was too mentally ill to execute. By 2002 several execution dates had come and gone. It was around this time that Reid informed his attorneys to stop appealing his case. Arguing that the death row prisoner was not mentally competent, and therefore couldn't determine his own fate, his attorneys ignored his request.
In 2003, to a newspaper reporter with Clarksville's Leaf-Chronicle, Reid said he had "sincere, profound empathy" for his victims' families. (I'm sure that made them feel better.) "I would say to them that if I have violated you or offended you in any manner, I plead for your forgiveness."
A pair of Tennessee courts in 2008 ruled that Mr. Reid was mentally sound enough to be executed. Four years later the state supreme court declared that Reid's attorneys could not continue to appeal against the condemned man's wishes. By now he had been on death fourteen years.
At six o'clock on the evening of Friday, November 1, 2013, after being treated two weeks at a Nashville hospital for an undisclosed illness, Paul Dennis Reid died on his own. He was fifty-five years old.
Doyle Brown, the father of one of Reid's victims at the McDonald's in Hermitage, said this to an Associated Press reporter who asked him how he felt about the death of the man who had murdered his daughter: "I'm glad he's dead. I wish it happened through the criminal justice system several years ago rather than him just getting sick and dying."
Members of Reid's family, people who fought for years to keep him from being executed, mourned his death. They didn't view their relative as an evil cold-blooded serial killer but as a victim of severe mental illness.
Since sane people can fake mental illness and crazy people can on occasion act perfectly normal, Mr. Reid's true nature will remain a mystery. However, since most mentally ill people are not violent, the fact that some are violent suggests that crazy people can also be evil. Mentally ill or not, Dennis Reid was evil. Therefore the legal effort to save his life was a waste of time and money. Attorneys should have better things to do.
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