Death Row In Montana? Meet The Inmates Awaiting Their Last Breath

Each state has its own set of laws when it comes to prison inmates and the sentences that are handed out. I got to thinking about Montana and how it still has the death penalty as a form of punishment, and began to wonder when it was last used.

In Montana, the last time that we actually put the death penalty to work was in 2006.

DAVID LAWSON (1957-2006)

David Thomson Lawson, a know drug addict, was sentenced to death for the murder of three people. Lawson was convicted of strangling and killing three of four members of the Rodstein family.

Victims included David and Monica (39) and their son Andrew (11). Their 15-year-old daughter, Amy, was found a couple days later in Lawson's Billings hotel room.

Lawson had no final words but did indulge in one last meal that consisted of two double cheeseburgers, two large orders of fries, half a gallon of vanilla fudge ripple ice cream, and two bottles of Dr. Pepper.

There are two other inmates that are currently on death row here in Montana.

RONALD SMITH (1957-)

Canadian inmate, Ronald Allen Smith, while under the influence of LSD (a psychedelic drug), committed two counts of aggravated kidnapping and two counts of deliberate homicide.

Smith, along with another man, were hitchhiking when they were offered a ride by two native American cousins (Harvey Mad Man, 23, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20). They then took the two cousins into the woods where they shot them in the head and left them.

WILLIAM GOLLEHON

The other man waiting on death row is William Jay Gollehon, who was already serving a 130-year sentence for killing a Billings woman in 1985, added to his horrific murder spree when he beat a fellow inmate to death with a baseball bat in 1990.

Then in 1991, Gollehon and eight other inmates took over a secure area of the prison where they rioted. After 4 hours of an attempted regain of control by the prison guards, 5 protected custody inmates were found dead.

Up until 1995, Montana still allowed hanging as a form of execution for the death penalty. In 1983, the state of Montana allowed death by lethal gas, but that technique was never used.

cc: Wikipedia, Murderpedia