Thayne Archibald Last Man to be Executed in Nevada Against His Will

Friday, March 29, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Five men have willingly been executed in Nevada since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for capital punishment in the mid-1970s, but the last condemned man to die in this state against his will was Thayne Archibald, who died in the gas chamber on Aug. 21, 1961.

Archibald, of Roy, Utah, was 23 when he died - with a smile and a wink, according to news stories at the time - following his conviction for the 1959 killing of a young Livermore, Calif., service station attendant.

Archibald admitted kidnapping the 17-year-old victim, Larry Waters, after robbing the station, and shooting him execution-style twice in the back of the head near Reno.

Archibald's execution was delayed for a year after he vainly appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court and to the state Pardons Board.

A prison psychologist, Dr. E. Wesley Hiler, stirred up a brief controversy several weeks before the execution by saying Archibald shouldn't die.

Hiler described Archibald as a "potentially useful citizen, a person of considerable literary ability, a person who is thoroughly repentant, a person who wanted to devote the rest of his life to try to help others avoid the mistakes he made in his life."

But the man who prosecuted Archibald, then-Washoe County District Attorney Bill Raggio, called Waters' murder one of the most brutal crimes he had ever dealt with.

Raggio submitted a letter written to him by Archibald after the Utah man had pleaded guilty. The letter was viewed as the most telling evidence against Archibald when he appealed to the state Supreme Court.

"I have lived and dreamed, robbed and murdered," the letter said. "Then what happened? ... A stiff-collared, smooth-talking D.A. breaks my back.

"Know something Mr. Razzo (sic), if I had taken the time to get rid off those empty cartridges by the body and got rid of the gun and kept my mouth shut, you people would have never connected me with that murder in a million years."

Archibald also had said he wanted to write a book about his exploits entitled "A Teen-Age Desire."