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An Arizona prisoner facing execution next month for the murder of four family members over three decades ago has issued a statement apologising for the pain he caused. Richard Djerf, 55, confirmed in a handwritten note released on Thursday that he would not seek clemency from the state board.
"If I can’t find reason to spare my life, what reason would anyone else have?" Djerf wrote. "I hope my death brings some measure of peace."
Djerf pleaded guilty to four counts of murder for the killings of Albert Luna Sr., his wife Patricia, and their children, 18-year-old Rochelle and five-year-old Damien, in their Phoenix home on 14 September 1993. A judge subsequently sentenced him to death. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office, which sought the execution warrant, declined to comment on the prisoner’s statement.
Djerf’s execution by lethal injection is scheduled for Oct. 17. It would be Arizona’s second use of the death penalty this year.
Prosecutors say Djerf blamed another Luna family member, Albert Luna Jr., for an earlier theft of home electronic items at his apartment, became obsessed with revenge and months later entered the home under a ruse in which he claimed to be delivering flowers.
Authorities say Djerf sexually assaulted Rochelle and slashed her throat; beat Albert Luna Sr. with an aluminum baseball bat before stabbing and shooting him; and tied Patricia Luna and Damien to kitchen chairs before fatally shooting them.
In his statement released Thursday, Djerf said Albert Jr. was an innocent victim who came home to discover what Djerf had done to his family. “No part of what I did to his family, or why, was ever his fault,” Djerf wrote.
The Associated Press was unable to find contact information for Luna through phone listings, examining case records and asking legal representatives involved in the court case.
Arizona, which currently has 108 prisoners on death row, last used the death penalty in mid-March when it executed Aaron Brian Gunches in the 2002 killing of Ted Price.
The state also carried out three executions in 2022 following a nearly eight-year hiatus brought on by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining drugs for execution. In the 2014 execution, Joseph Wood was injected with 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours, leading him to snort repeatedly and gasp hundreds of times before he died.
