Todd Kelvin Wessinger | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 28, 1967 Louisiana, U.S. |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated on death row in Louisiana |
| Conviction(s) | First-degree murder (x2) |
| Criminal penalty | Death (x2) |
| Details | |
| Victims | Stephanie Guzzardo, 27 David Breakwell, 46 |
| Date | November 19, 1995 |
| Location(s) | Louisiana |
| Imprisoned at | Louisiana State Penitentiary |
Todd Kelvin Wessinger (born November 28, 1967) is an American convicted murderer sentenced to death for the murders of two restaurant employees in Louisiana. On November 19, 1995, Wessinger committed an armed robbery at a local Baton Rouge restaurant, where Wessinger used to work as a dishwasher, and during the robbery, Wessinger shot and killed two of his former co-workers, David Breakwell and Stephanie Guzzardo. Wessinger was found guilty in 1997 of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, and he is currently imprisoned on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, awaiting his execution, which has yet to be scheduled.
On November 19, 1995, 27-year-old Todd Kelvin Wessinger, a former dishwasher, committed a mass shooting at a restaurant where he had once worked, resulting in the deaths of two of his former colleagues. [1] [2]
On the day in question, Wessinger entered the restaurant with a .380 semi-automatic pistol after arriving at the restaurant on a bicycle. Wessinger and the bartender, Mike Armentor, greeted each other and immediately after entering the restaurant, Wessinger fired two shots at Armentor from the back and Armentor collapsed on the ground with severe abdominal injuries. Afterwards, Wessinger held the dishwasher, Alvin Ricks, at gunpoint and wanted to shoot him in the head, but the gun jammed and failed to discharge, and Ricks quickly escaped the restaurant, with Wessinger misfiring the gun while trying to aim for Ricks's leg. Ricks and Willie Grigsby, another employee, ran across the street after their escape to call the police, with Ricks informing Girgsby that he identified the shooter. [2] [1]
Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, Wessinger continued his shooting spree. He pointed his gun at the restaurant manager, Stephanie Guzzardo, who was about to call the police. Guzzardo pleaded for her life but Wessinger shot and killed the 27-year-old manager. After he removed approximately $7000 from the office, Wessinger found the 46-year-old cook David Breakwell hiding inside the cooler. Despite Breakwell's pleas for mercy, he was shot by Wessinger. [2] [1]
After murdering Guzzardo and shooting both Breakwell and Armentor, Wessinger fled the restaurant on his bicycle. Both Armentor and Breakwell were subsequently found by paramedics responding to the scene, but Breakwell died on the way to the hospital. Despite the severity of his wounds, Armentor survived with timely medical intervention. [2] [1]
On November 28, 1995, nine days after he killed both Stephanie Guzzardo and David Breakwell, Todd Wessinger was arrested in Garland, Texas, and extradited back to Louisiana, where he was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the Baton Rouge restaurant shootings, [2] [3] and if convicted of first-degree murder, Wessinger faced the death penalty. [4]
On June 24, 1997, after a trial lasting two days, a East Baton Rouge Parish jury found Wessinger guilty of first-degree murder on both counts, and his sentencing hearing began the next day. [5] [6]
On June 26, 1997, the jury returned with their verdict on sentence, unanimously recommending two deaths sentences for both the murder charges preferred against Wessinger. [5]
On September 17, 1997, Wessinger was formally sentenced to death by the trial judge in accordance with the jury's recommendation. [5]
On May 28, 1999, the Louisiana Supreme Court dismissed Todd Wessinger's appeal against his death sentence and murder conviction. [2]
On September 4, 2003, District Judge Richard Anderson rejected Wessinger's request for a new trial. [7]
Nine years later, Wessinger was issued a death warrant, and his execution date was set as May 9, 2012. On April 14, 2012, Wessinger appealed for a new trial in his case. [8] Two weeks after Wessinger filed the appeal, on April 25, 2012, a stay of execution was granted to Wessinger while pending his appeal for a new trial. [9] [10] A hearing was granted by a federal judge in May 2012. [11]
On July 29, 2015, U.S. District Judge James Joseph Brady ordered a new sentencing hearing for Wessinger, whose death sentence was vacated but with his murder conviction upheld. Brady ruled that Wessinger's trial counsel was deficient in their conduct and this violated the constitutional rights of Wessinger. In response to the reprieve, Stephanie Guzzardo's father called the ruling a "stab in the back" and accused Brady of having no compassion for the victims' families. [12] Prior to the ruling, Guzzardo's father affirmed that he would not want Wessinger to be given life imprisonment for murdering his daughter and sought to have the death penalty carried out in Wessinger's case. [13]
In July 2016, Wessinger and another condemned killer Shedran Williams (who killed a policeman in 2004) applied to join a 2012 federal lawsuit filed by Jessie Hoffman Jr. and Christopher Sepulvado against the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection protocols. [14] The lawsuit itself was concluded in 2022. [15]
On July 20, 2017, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the death sentence of Wessinger. [16]
On January 8, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Wessinger's appeal and confirmed his death sentence for the Baton Rouge restaurant shooting. [17]
Another appeal was filed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wessinger's lawyers argued in this appeal that the jury presiding Wessinger's original trial did not hear mitigating evidence from his trial counsel, which included the child abuse and brain damage caused by a stroke suffered by Wessinger during his childhood, factors that would have allowed him to be spared the death penalty. [18] The petition was likewise rejected by a near unanimous vote of 8–1 on March 5, 2018. Guzzardo's father reportedly applauded the decision by stating, "It’s one step closer to justice." [19]
On December 20, 2022, Wessinger's petition for habeas relief was granted by U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles, who ordered Wessinger to undergo a new sentencing trial, and the state prosecutors had since filed an appeal against the ruling. [20] [21]
In 2023, as Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards approached the end of his term, he publicly announced his opposition to the death penalty and his support for its abolition in the state. Despite this, on May 24, 2023, the Louisiana legislature voted down a bill that aimed to abolish capital punishment. [22] [23] Stephanie Guzzardo's father testified in opposition to the abolition of capital punishment, stating that he supported the execution of Wessinger and emotionally recounted during a legislature hearing about how his daughter was gunned down despite her plea for mercy, and was offended by those who cited the expensive costs of death penalty cases, claiming that this was like an insult to "put a price tag" on his daughter's life. [24]
A month later, in June 2023, 56 out of the 57 death row inmates in the state filed clemency petitions in hopes of having their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment by Edwards before his term ended. Wessinger was one of those 56 prisoners that petitioned for clemency, and their applications were referred to the Louisiana Board of Pardons and the Committee on Parole. [25] [26] [27] In response to the clemency petition of Wessinger, Stephanie Guzzardo's father expressed that he wanted Wessinger to be executed for murdering his daughter, and he promised to oppose the commutation of Wessinger's death sentence, and was critical of Wessinger's multiple attempts to escape his execution. [28] [29]
In July 2023, the Board rejected all 56 petitions, citing that the inmates were ineligible because their filings came too soon after recent judicial rulings on their appeals. According to the rules, clemency petitions could only be filed at least one year after the final appeal decision. [30] In October 2023, the Board also denied further clemency requests from five death row inmates, including the state's only female condemned prisoner Antoinette Frank. [31] [32]
Eventually, the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole decided to conduct a clemency hearing for Wessinger. Wessinger's lawyers argued that their client suffered from mental deficiencies induced by a pediatric stroke, and this information was not presented before the jury. [33]
On November 27, 2023, Wessinger was denied clemency. [34] [35]
In 2018, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry publicly criticised the state's governor John Bell Edwards for not resolving the pause on executions in Louisiana, and claimed that the governor and his administration was prolonging the moratorium on purpose. In response to Landry's claims, Edwards said that the state was unable to proceed with future executions due to the continued shortage of lethal injection drugs required to execute criminals (lethal injection was the only legal method deployed to carry out death sentences in Louisiana). After the issue broke out, the surviving kin of Stephanie Guzzardo expressed their hope for Todd Wessinger's execution and criticised the governor for his unclear stance towards capital punishment and called for Edwards and his administration to ensure that justice was served. [36] [37] Guzzardo's father also wrote a letter to local newspaper The Advocate , expressing his grief and disappointment in the repeated delays of Wessinger's execution and the governor's lack of action in this issue. [38]
At that point in time, Louisiana had observed an informal moratorium on executions since the last one in 2010, when Gerald Bordelon was executed for the rape and murder of his stepdaughter. [39] This moratorium was due to difficulties in obtaining lethal injection drugs, compounded by pharmaceutical companies' refusal to provide them for execution purposes. [40]
In March 2019, Attorney General Jeff Landry and the families of murder victims, whose killers remain on death row in Louisiana, were allowed to testify before the House Criminal Justice Committee. Guzzardo's father advocated for the state to restart executions and execute Wessinger, and stated that his family was still waiting for closure and justice to be fulfilled, and he was not satisfied with Edwards's inaction in resolving the issues surrounding the resumption of executions. Landry rounded up the opinions of the families (most of whom agreed with the death penalty) and urged Edwards to take further action to ensure the ends of justice be served and allow a resolution to the moratorium on capital punishment in the state. [41] [42] [43] In a separate interview, a friend of Guzzardo described the victim as the "sweetest person" she ever knew and she found it extremely heartbreaking and devastating to lose Guzzardo, and she was still waiting for Wessinger's sentence to be carried out. [44]
Despite the testimony from Guzzardo and other family members of the victims, a bill to abolish capital punishment was approved in May 2019 and advanced to the House, but it ultimately failed to materialize that same month due to the House rejecting it by a majority vote. [45] [46]
In March 2024, Attorney General Jeff Landry, who became the new governor following the conclusion of Edwards's term, signed a law allowing nitrogen hypoxia and reintroduce the electric chair as alternative methods of execution, in addition to lethal injection, which remained the primary method. This legislation came in the wake of the 2024 execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama, the first ever use of nitrogen hypoxia for execution, both in the United States and globally. [47] [48] Louisiana State Representative Nicholas Muscarello Jr., who first filed the bill, stated that he did so with hopes to ensure closure and bring justice for the families who lost their loved ones to murder, and cited the case of Wessinger, recalling the vocal calls by Guzzardo's father for Wessinger to be put to death. [49]
Some families of murder victims whose killers were still on death row voiced their support for the bill, which could pave the way for the executions of Wessinger and 56 others on Louisiana’s death row. Stephanie Guzzardo's father was vocal in supporting the Bill and stated that he and his wife wanted Wessinger's death sentence to be carried out soon and pointed out that Wessinger had the benefit of seeing his family members during prison visits but they themselves could only see their daughter in the cemetery. [50] In his public efforts to seek justice for his daughter, Guzzardo's father built up a close friendship with Landry, who described Guzzardo's father as a "guiding light" for the families who lost their loved ones to murder and shared the same purpose as him and cited their support as a driving force for him to further affirm his resolve to maintain capital punishment, while Guzzardo and the many other murder victims' surviving kin described Landry as their saviour for his efforts to seek justice and execute the condemned killers of their loved ones. Guzzardo's father also defended his stance in Landry's special crime session, stating that the families were not seeking revenge against the death row inmates but justice and closure for their loved ones. [20]
In April 2024, merely a month after Louisiana legalise nitrogen gas executions in the state, a bill was proposed to remove nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in the state. [51] Stephanie Guzzardo's father opposed to the removal of nitrogen hypoxia, stating that approving this bill was an affront to murder victims' surviving family members. Ultimately, the bill failed to pass after the House committee rejected it by a 8–3 vote (with all Republicans opposing to the bill). [52]
In February 2025, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced the state would resume executions using nitrogen hypoxia, a method previously used by Alabama to execute four prisoners between January 2024 and February 2025. Governor Jeff Landry supported the decision to resume executions, underscoring the state's commitment to delivering justice to crime victims after the long delay. [53] [54] [55]
Wessinger was not among the first batch of prisoners to have their executions scheduled. Three condemned inmates: Christopher Sepulvado, Jessie Hoffman Jr. and Larry Roy received confirmed execution dates of March 17, March 18 and March 19, 2025, [56] [57] [58] but currently, only Hoffman is left awaiting his scheduled execution as Sepulvado died of natural causes weeks before the execution while Roy's death warrant was cancelled due to his appeals were left unresolved. [59] [60]
As of 2025, Todd Wessinger remains on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.