Derek Barnabei was executed Thursday night for the rape and murder of a

college girl he dated.

Hours earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court twice refused to grant a stay in

the case that was closely followed in Italy.

Barnabei, 33, was put to death by injection at the Greensville

Correctional Center for the 1993 slaying of Sarah J. Wisnosky, a

17-year-old Old Dominion University freshman.

He was pronounced dead at 9:05 p.m.

"I am truly innocent of this crime," Barnabei said in a final

statement. "Eventually, the truth will come out." Afterwards, he told

his mother and brother he loved them, cited a passage from the Bible and

thanked several people who had taken an interest in his case.

Barnabei was brought into the execution chamber at 8:54 p.m. He glared at

Virginia corrections director Ron Angelone, who was on a red telephone

linked to Gov. Jim Gilmore's office. Barnabei wore a blue shirt,

dungarees, white socks and blue shower slippers.

The Rev. Jim Gallagher, a Roman Catholic priest, spoke to Barnabei

briefly in the execution chamber and then entered the witness booth,

where he whispered prayers throughout the execution.

The lethal chemicals began flowing into Barnabei's left arm at 9:02 p.m.

Barnabei continued talking until his lip movement suddenly stopped a few

seconds later.

Barnabei had his final meal at 5:06 p.m., but prison officials, at

Barnabei's request, declined to reveal what he ate.

No family members of the victim attended the execution, corrections

officials said.

About 25 death penalty opponents conducted a candlelight vigil outside

the rural prison's main gate as the execution hour approached.

Barnabei repeatedly said he was innocent. The case was closely followed

in Italy because he is Italian-American and that country opposes the

death penalty.

In an interview Wednesday, Barnabei said: "I don't want to die and it's

unjust that I die. If this is what God wants, then so be it. I accept it.

Who am I to question the ultimate design?"

Barnabei's spiritual adviser, the Rev. Bob West, met with Barnabei for

about 90 minutes Thursday and said the condemned man was "ready to die."

"He's at peace, in great spirits," West said.

Craig Barnabei, Derek Barnabei's brother, described him as "remarkably

calm and at peace with himself."

At a final family meeting at the prison, Barnabei told his brother and

mother Jane to "to go on with our lives and fight," Craig Barnabei

said.

"I hope this is not for nothing," Craig Barnabei quoted his brother as

saying. "I hope people take a hard look at my case."

Barnabei also wanted his body cremated, but his mother talked him out of

it, his brother said.

About 2 hours before the execution, Barnabei wrote out a will by hand.

Andy Protogyrou, one of Barnabei's attorneys, declined to identify

Barnabei's beneficiaries.

Earlier Thursday, Barnabei's lawyers filed a clemency petition with Gov.

Jim Gilmore, even though the governor had said Monday that he would not

grant clemency because new DNA testing confirmed Barnabei was guilty.

"Serious doubts still surround this case," lawyer Seth A. Tucker said

in the petition filed Wednesday. He argued that Barnabei should not be

executed while a state police investigation continues into a temporary

disappearance of evidence in the case.

"It would do a disservice not only to Derek Barnabei, but also to the

people of the Commonwealth of Virginia, to continue with an execution

when there is still no conclusion as to who moved the evidence, what they

did with it, and why," Tucker wrote.

Gilmore said Thursday that he is sure nobody tampered with the evidence

that was tested -- Wisnosky's fingernail clippings, which were in a

sealed envelope that had not been opened.

He also said plenty of other evidence was considered at trial and in

Barnabei's appeals.

"We can't retry cases in the governor's office," Gilmore told

reporters.

The Supreme Court's denial of two stay requests followed rulings against

Barnabei by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. District Judge

James Spencer in Richmond. The courts dismissed defense arguments that

the state tampered with evidence and that more DNA testing should be done

because some evidence disappeared from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1 at the Norfolk

Circuit Court clerk's office.

Barnabei had asked for DNA tests on some of that evidence -- genetic

material on Wisnosky's fingernail clippings -- in effort to prove

someone else committed the crime. Instead, the DNA tests matched

Barnabei.

Wisnosky was last seen alive in Barnabei's room in a house he shared with

other young men in Norfolk. Her nude and beaten body was found floating

in the Lafayette River.

Barnabei becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year

in Virginia and the 79th overall since the state resumed capital

punishment in 1982. Only Texas has put more condemned inmates (231)

to death since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July

2, 1976.

Barnabei becomes the 68th condemned inmate to be put to death in

America this year and the 666th overall since executions were resumed

on January 17, 1977.

(sources: The Virginian-Pilot & Rick Halperin)

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Death penalty protesters railed against the cruelty of capital punishment

and promised Gov. Jim Gilmore they will not go away during a vigil for

Derek R. Barnabei held in Charlottesville Thursday.

"This is America. We're supposed to be civilized. That's not what I see,"

Ida Reid of Charlottesville told about 30 protesters at one of more than

2-dozen anti-capital punishment rallies planned during the day.

The vigils were scheduled to protest the state's planned execution of

Barnabei on Thursday at 9 p.m. for the rape and slaying of a 17-year-old

in 1993.

Reid said her brother, James Reid, has been brain-damaged since a car

accident 30 years ago, but he was still sent to death row for the 1996

slaying of Annie Lester, a female acquaintance in Montgomery County.

Holding signs that bore slogans such as "Life is sacred. Do not kill,"

and "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," some protesters said

the justice system is too unreliable and capital punishment too brutal.

"Someone can get capital punishment one day and on a different day,

judge, and jury, he's acquitted," said Deborah Wyatt, a trial attorney

in Charlottesville. "There's too much fallibility in the system."

Wyatt thinks public opinion is moving away from the death penalty

"Why are the European countries so ahead of us?," she said. "What's

wrong with us?"

Barnabei, who was denied in his appeal to the Supreme Court earlier

Thursday and promptly filed another, has denied raping and killing

17-year-old Sarah J. Wisnosky, an Old Dominion University freshman.

But DNA tests released Monday showed that the blood on fingernail

clippings from the victim matched Barnabei.

On Tuesday, a federal judge denied a stay for Barnabei and dismissed

arguments by his attorneys of "deliberate and malicious tampering" by the

state with evidence -- including Wisnosky's fingernail clippings -- that

were missing for 2 few days before turning up and being tested.

The material, along with other forensic evidence, disappeared from a

secure holding area in the Norfolk Circuit Court Clerk's office late last

month. After it was found in the office, Gov. Jim Gilmore ordered an

investigation into the disappearance. The investigation is ongoing.

"Why this cloud of secrecy?" said Henry Heller, director of Virginians

for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Heller pointed out that members of

Barnabei's defense were not allowed to witness the testing.

"We are just taking the word of our governor, and I'm not comfortable

with that at all -- that smacks of fascism" Heller said.

"There are so many questions" about the case, Heller said. "This is not

cut and dry and we're not being told the whole story."

(source: The Virginian-Pilot)