Adrianna Waller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One August afternoon in 1997 Shonda Waller left for the grocery store when she returned  home, she found her 11 month old daughter Adrianna, undressed, limp and lifeless. Adrianna was dead on arrival at Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City. Her skull, jaw and ribs were fractured. Her liver was lacerated, her spleen and lungs were bruised. A nurse first noticed signs of sexual abuse, as she cleaned Adrianna's tiny body so that her mother could hold her one last time.

 

Charles Warner, the former roommate of Waller, initially admitted to being alone with Adrianna and his own three children while Waller was at the grocery store. He told police Adrianna fell off the bed while he was out of the room. The autopsy report shows Adrianna’s skull was broken, her jaw fractured and bruising consistent with shaken baby and rape. He was convicted of raping and murdering Adrianna. Warner has been behind bars since the day of the murder. Warner was tried three times in Oklahoma County District Court before he landed permanently on death row. At the first trial, he was convicted and sentenced to death. But within a few years, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reversed that sentence and ordered a new trial. The second time, in 2003, it was declared a mistrial. But months later, he was re-tried, convicted and once again sentenced to death. He now awaits his execution at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Warner is scheduled to die by lethal injection January 15, 2015.

 

Shonda Waller told defense lawyers that a lethal injection for Warner would be a "dishonor" to her daughter Adrianna's name and against her religious beliefs. "I don't see any justice in just sentencing someone to die," Waller said. "To me, the justice is in someone living with what they have done to you, your family, and having to live with that for the rest of their life knowing they will never walk out those bars."

 

Update:

 

January 15, 2015 The Department of Corrections confirms Oklahoma inmate Charles Frederick Warner has been executed at 7:28 p.m.