In 1996, 22-year-old Telisha Shaver was a sunny golf fanatic from Spokane Valley who had just been accepted to her first Ladies Professional Golf Association tournament. Her boyfriend thought she was pregnant, a question that still haunts Telisha's mom.
On an April Saturday dawn, Dwayne Woods, the short-time boyfriend of Venus Shaver, Telisha's sister, showed up at the mobile home where 19-year-old Venus was housesitting. Venus’s 18-year-old friend Jade Moore was there too.
According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Woods attacked Venus Shaver first, stabbing her and hitting her in the head with a baseball bat. Then he woke up Moore with a knife to her throat, before raping, stabbing and beating her.
Then Telisha Shaver showed up at the mobile home later that morning -- and ,was raped, stabbed and beaten unconscious. Woods ordered Moore to cut Telisha Shaver's throat..She refused. He smacked Moore with the bat some more. Then Venus' and Telisha's mother Sherry Shaver arrived to view the carnage and see Woods run away. She chased Woods, but did not catch him.
"Do you think I wouldn't have killed him on the spot? Wouldn't you?" Sherry Shaver asked the Washington Senate's Law & Justice Committee Wednesday.
Telisha Shaver died without regaining consciousness. Venus Shaver recovered, but had no memory of what happened. Moore identified Woods as the killer before she died. Woods is one of nine men on Washington's Death Row in Walla Walla.
"The only peace we can have as a family is his death,” said Sherry Shaver. Then, remembering the question of her daughter’s pregnancy, Shaver added: "To this day, I wonder whether this would be good news or bad news."
Family members of victims killed by men on Death Row testified Wednesday in favor of a bill introduced by Sen. Steve O'Ban (below), R-Pierce County. The measure would require a recommendation from the Washington Clemency and Pardons Board before a death sentence could be commuted.
O'Ban's bill is a reaction against Gov. Jay Inslee’s recent moratorium on executions while he is in office. None of the current death sentences was commuted, meaning a future governor could lift the moratorium and green light the nine stalled executions.
Inslee is troubled by the inconsistent use of the death penalty, by questions about whether it really is a deterrent to murder and by the high costs of the decades-long efforts to execute a person on Death Row. Thirty-two people have been sentenced to death in Washington since 1981. Of that number, one has been freed and 18 have had their sentences converted to life in prison. Washington's Constitution gives Inslee the legal power to declare a moratorium on executions.
