SEATTLE — If child killer Joe McEnroe had been given the death sentence he would have joined nine other men still waiting on Washington's death row.
Quick Facts:
- Joe McEnroe given life in prison for murdering six
- Victims were members of his girlfriend Michele Anderson's family
- Carnation killings were Dec. 24, 2007
- Michele Anderson to face trial later this year
Governor Inslee announced a moratorium on all executions on February 11, 2014.
It is unclear whether jurors thought about the moratorium while deliberating, but Inslee stated in his decision that it is less expensive to give convicted killers life in prison than sentence them to the death penalty because of the length of the appeals process. None of the nine death row cases in Washington have reached the governor for a reprieve yet, according to Inslee’s general counsel, Nick Brown.
Click here to see photos of the nine men on Washington's death row.
Had McEnroe been sentenced to death for the six murders he committed, his case would have moved through the appeals process for years. If the case had reached Inslee's desk, the governor would have issued a reprieve, or hold, on the execution.
The costs for the prosecutor’s office in the cases against McEnroe and Michele Anderson totaled $1,231,000 through April. They began work on the case shortly after the victims were found on Dec. 26, 2007.
That total does not include costs for King County Sheriff’s investigators, the state crime lab or multiple public defenders.
Activists applaud Wednesday's sentence saying it ensures McEnroe will spend the rest of his life in prison, and it spares the victims' families an average of 15 years of constitutionally mandated appeals that would have followed a death sentence.
The six victims in the Carnation killing were Wayne and Judy Anderson, Scott and Erica Anderson, and their two young children, 5-year-old Olivia and 3-year-old Nathan. Those are all relatives of Michele Anderson, McEnroe’s former girlfriend, whose trail begins later this year.
Pam Mantle, whose daughter and grandchildren were killed, said she and her husband were happy about the verdict “because we don’t ever have to deal with it again.”
“It’ll be probably better for everybody involved to be able to just kind of put the McEnroe part of this case away,” she said.
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