Sheffield makes history again..
Sheffield makes history again and it makes me want to cry…
The following is an excerpt to an article from al.com regarding the end of a decades long nightmare:
Alabama Death Row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith on Thursday night became the first prisoner to die using a new untested method of execution in the United States—suffocation by nitrogen gas.
The 58-year-old was executed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
Smith and his spiritual advisor, the Rev. Jeff Hood, had issued this joint statement prior to the execution: “The eyes of the world are on this impending moral apocalypse. Our prayer is that people will not turn their heads. We simply cannot normalize the suffocation of each other.”
In announcing the execution had been carried out, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey stated: “I pray that Elizabeth Sennett’s family can receive closure after all these years dealing with that great loss.”
After the execution, the Rev. Hood held a press conference with Death Penalty Action officials and Smith’s wife at a local hotel.
Hood said he has witnessed five lethal injection executions over the past year or so. “Lethal injection is preferable every single day,” over nitrogen, he said. He said that witnesses didn’t see the execution over in a matter of seconds. “What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for his life,” he said.
“Kenny Smith was by no means a perfect person,” Hood added. “We have got to make sure that this never, ever, happens again.”
Mike Sennett, one of Elizabeth Sennett’s two sons, stood at the back of the hotel press conference listening to Hood and others. When asked what he thought of the press conference, he said simply, “it sucks.”
Mike Sennett, had spoken earlier at a press conference at the prison media center. His brother, Chuck, stood behind him but did not speak. “Nothing happened here today that’s gonna bring mom back,” Mike Sennett said.
“We’re glad this is over,” said Mike Sennett, who added all three involved in his mother’s death had been forgiven.
Mike Sennett said “evil deeds” had been paid for tonight. “Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett got her justice tonight. ”https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2024/01/alabama-to-execute-kenneth-smith-with-untested-nitrogen-gas-tonight.html
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This nightmare happened in my family’s own backyards. My heart still breaks for those two sons and their mother, all innocents. The wife was brutally murdered in her home near Coon Dog Cemetery. The scene was staged to appear like a robbery. This story begins with the Westside Church of Christ preacher in southwest Sheffield, having an affair with a woman who attended church in his congregation. Then there was a large life insurance policy taken out on his wife. The preacher contracted with a man to hire someone to kill his wife. There were three men involved in the contract for hire scheme. Kenneth Eugene Smith was the third and last to live.
This is how I remember the event. The wife was killed, the husband was arrested for hiring contractors to kill his wife, in this case there were three men involved in the murder. Her life was worth so little in the amount paid to have her killed – $1,000 paid to each of three men. The husband was arrested. Charles Sennett was allowed to go to the home of one of the sons accompanied by the Sheriff (according to neighbor reports) to allow the husband to tell one of his sons about his culpability in person. My grandparents lived one house away from the corner of the street that the son lived on; just a couple of houses around the corner, nearby the Winston Cemetery. The father, Charles Sennett, was allowed to go into the son’s home. When he returned to the vehicle, he got possession of a gun and shot himself. He must have died on the scene. My heart broke for those sons and for that innocent woman and her family.
In my childhood neighborhood, a few members of that church made their church doctrine known to nearby neighbors. Time and again one woman (former family member) was known to tell my family members that if they did not belong to the Church of Christ they were going to hell. I recall one of my beloved family members telling this woman that if you are going to Heaven, then I am happy with my choice. There were members of the same congregation that did not do that. The neighborhood and I am sure the entire congregation were in mortal shock about this turn of events with the Sennett family. I have often wondered who ‘the other woman’ was and just how happy she was with her behavior that catapulted such a tragic event.
When memory goes back to those events, I have often wondered how those two boys coped with the murder of their mother and the fact that their father was the perpetrator. It disturbed the entire neighborhood so profoundly that the collective hoped that the sons would survive and thrive; and that they would be happy, have happy families, and not have to live with this all their lifelong. Maybe the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith will put an “END TO THE NIGHTMARE OF ALMOST 40 YEARS.”
The following are media reports from al.com and others on the events related to the murder-for-hire.
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Former sheriff recalls woman’s ‘horrific’ murder-for-hire by pastor as Alabama prepares execution
- Updated: Jan. 26, 2024, 10:36 a.m.|
- Published: Nov. 17, 2022, 9:14 a.m.
By: Kent Faulk | kfaulk@al.com
Ronnie May remembers the horrific scene on March 18, 1988, when he responded to a call from Charles Sennett, a Church of Christ pastor in Sheffield.
Sennett claimed he found his wife, Elizabeth Sennett, dead in their home on Coon Dog Cemetery Road in Colbert County. She had been stabbed, and beaten with a fireplace implement, in what investigators would soon conclude was a murder-for-hire paid for by the pastor and staged to look like a home invasion and burglary.
“She fought it and she fought hard,” said May, who was chief investigator with the Colbert County Sheriff’s Office at the time. “It was horrific to me.”
“You feel for the victim and what they went through – and the horror she went through in her last minutes,” May said.
And you feel for the family and the range of emotions, including pain and anger, May said of the Sennetts’ two sons. “You see the horror and disbelief in their faces,” said May, who retired in 2015 after 42 years in law enforcement and 16 years as sheriff.
The sons plan to attend tonight’s scheduled execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, one of the three men convicted in the murder-for-hire scheme – their father committed suicide before he could be charged. The execution is set for 6 p.m. at Holman Correctional Facility.
Smith ultimately confessed to his role, along with John Forrest Parker and a third man who had arranged it, according to law enforcement and court documents. At his first trial the jury voted to sentence Smith to death. At a second trial the jury voted 11-1 to recommend life without parole but the judge overrode it and sentenced him to death.
On Tuesday night the U.S. Supreme Court denied Smith’s request to halt the execution.
According to court records summarizing the case, Charles Sennett Sr. recruited Billy Gray Williams, who in turn recruited Smith and Parker, to kill his wife.
“He was to pay them each $1,000 in cash for killing Mrs. Sennett.There was testimony that Charles Sennett was involved in an affair, that he had incurred substantial debts, that he had taken out a large insurance policy on his wife, and that approximately one week after the murder, when the murder investigation started to focus on him as a suspect, Sennett committed suicide,” according to court documents.
May described the murder scene and investigation in an interview with AL.com on Wednesday.
One of the sheriff’s secretaries had initially fielded the call from Sennett, who was screaming, and she couldn’t understand what he was saying, said May, who then took the phone. After calming him down, he said, Sennett told him he had come home and found his wife dead.
“All we knew was a pastor’s wife had been killed in what had been a home invasion,” May said. Investigators spent several days at the crime scene and a few things didn’t seem right starting with the initial scene, he said.
May was one of the first to arrive and he said he couldn’t find any evidence of a pulse. But after rescue workers arrived, they announced they did find one heartbeat, May said. “He (Charles Sennett Sr.) almost fell when they said that” he said.
May said he rode to the hospital in the ambulance hoping Mrs. Sennett would say something. But she never did, and doctors declared her dead a short time later.
The scene within the home also appeared to be staged to look like a home invasion, May said.
And later May said he realized he had actually met Charles Sennett Sr. just weeks before the murder.
May said he had been working on another murder case – the shooting death of a service station owner near Cherokee – several weeks earlier. Investigators were in the store when he happened to look up and saw a rescue squad member (Sennett) who was following him around, he said.
May said he had to ask the man to leave, but he kept coming back inside the store. He said he speculated Sennett was trying to check out what investigators would look at in order to stage a crime scene.
The suspects’ names came up from a call to CrimeStoppers, May said. After that call, investigators got the pastor back in for an interview for “the better part of hour and he denied and denied,” he said.
Finally, Sennett got up to leave the interrogation room but stopped in the doorway when someone in the room wondered out loud whether they thought Sennett knew Kenny Smith, May said. “He (Sennett) went beet red,” he said.
Immediately after that interview Sennett went straight to the home by the church where his sons and their families had gathered, May said. “He admitted to them that he had an affair … (and) he was responsible for their mother’s death,” he said.
After telling his family, he walked outside to his old pickup truck, got in the front seat, and shot himself, said May, who rode to the hospital in the ambulance in hopes of getting Sennett to talk. He never responded and was declared dead at the hospital, he said.
After that, investigators were able to get a search warrant for Smith’s home and found a VCR that had come from the Sennett’s house, May said.
Smith and Parker both provided information about the death of Mrs. Sennett in interviews after Charles Sennett Sr.’s death, May said.
Parker was convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed in 2010. Williams was convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
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Related stories:
Alabama man sentenced to death over jury’s wish asks U.S. Supreme Court to stay execution
Federal judge dismisses lawsuit by Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith
Alabama sets execution in murder-for-hire of pastor’s wife, despite jury’s recommendation
Judge to hear arguments in case of Alabama death row inmate scheduled to die in November
Remembering the Shoals 