SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah man who was spared execution this fall after developing dementia during his 37 years on death row died Wednesday of apparent natural causes, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Ralph Leroy Menzies, 67, was set to die by firing squad in September, but the Utah Supreme Court blocked the impending execution in August after his lawyers argued his dementia had become too severe. A judge had scheduled a new competency hearing for mid-December to reevaluate his mental state.
Menzies was convicted of kidnapping and killing 26-year-old mother of three Maurine Hunsaker near Salt Lake City in 1986. Her body was discovered two days later.
Her husband, Jim Hunsaker, told The Associated Press that he felt a “sense of joy” when he heard that Menzies had died, and it was as if 100 pounds had been lifted from him.
“I think a lot of it is just going to be healing now,” he said. “I don’t think there’s been a day that I haven’t thought about it.”
He expressed frustration at how the state’s judicial system handled the case, saying his family for decades has experienced “one disappointment after another.”
“It seems that everything went his way,” he said.
Menzies would have been the seventh American prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977, when the United States reinstated the death penalty. He chose the method when given a choice decades ago.
The Utah Supreme Court said this summer that the progression of Menzies’ disease raised a significant question about his fitness to be executed. A state medical professional agreed in a new mental competency report published this month, saying Menzies lacked a rational understanding of why he was facing execution.
He is one of many US inmates who died of natural causes while on death row.
More than half of all death row inmates in the United States spend more than 18 years awaiting execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Menzies kidnapped Hunsaker from a convenience store where she worked on February 23, 1986, while he was on parole. She later called her husband to say that she had been robbed and kidnapped, and that her kidnapper intended to set her free. Days later, a hiker found her body in a picnic area about 16 miles (25 kilometers) away in Big Cottonwood Canyon. She had been strangled and her throat had been slit.
Utah Attorney General Derek Brown said he hopes Hunsaker’s family will finally have some closure and peace.
“For decades, the state of Utah has pursued justice in its name. The road has been long and filled with pain, much more than any victim’s family should ever have to endure,” said Brown.
Police said Hunsaker’s fingerprint was found in a car Menzies was driving, and her purse was recovered in Menzies’ apartment. Menzies also had her wallet and other belongings when he was in prison on unrelated matters.
“We are grateful that Ralph passed naturally and maintained his spirit and dignity until the end,” his legal team said in a statement.
Utah’s last execution was by lethal injection just over a year ago. The state has not used a firing squad since the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.
___
Govindarao reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Matthew Brown contributed from Billings, Montana.