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Thursday, September 25, 1997

Inmate to get his wish: He'll die Thursday.

By MICHAEL GRACZYK / Associated Press Writer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Benjamin Stone is about to have his wish fulfilled.

"From the day I turned myself in, I've said I wanted capital murder, I said I wanted the death penalty. I got it. And I said I wasn't going to fight it. I was going to push for execution. And I got it," Stone said from a cage in the visiting room outside the Texas death row.

Stone, 45, was set for lethal injection Thursday evening for strangling his 34-year-old ex-wife, Patsy, and his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Keitha Lynn Van Coney, at their Corpus Christi home July 1, 1995.

His 17 months on death row would be the second-shortest time on death row before a Texas inmate headed to the death chamber gurney. Only condemned killer Joe Gonzales, who was imprisoned 252 days before execution last year, had a shorter death row stay. Gonzales, like Stone, volunteered for death.

No appeals were pending in Stone's case. And that's just the way he wants it.

"I'm not appealing anything," he told The Associated Press in his first prison interview. "What's the point? I'm guilty. I feel like I'm doing the right thing. Why prolong it? It's going to happen any way. This has been the goal since the day I turned myself in, after I realized what happened."

Stone called police from a pay phone at a highway rest stop near Corpus Christi the afternoon of July 2, 1995.

"I killed my wife and my stepdaughter," he told a 911 dispatcher.

When asked how, he replied: "With my hands."

He told the dispatcher he would be by his ex-wife's car, which is where three sheriff's deputies and four state troopers found him and arrested him.

Stone had a history of alcohol and drug abuse and received probation after being convicted of attempted sexual assault against his sister. At his capital murder trial, he stood mute, refusing to enter the innocent plea his attorneys preferred.

A chemical dependency counselor, testifying for Stone, said the ex-plumber had no ability to think rationally.

"I've been found competent three different times," Stone said in the days before his scheduled execution. "How many times does somebody need to be proven competent?

"What's wrong with having my sentence carried out?"

Stone would say little about the murders.

"I'm not a violent person," he said. "I just snapped. There were a few things that happened. Things built up to a point and I just snapped."

Ben and Patsy Stone married in 1985 when Keitha was almost 3 and moved from Austin to Corpus Christi. Court records showed they separated in January 1994. Mrs. Stone filed for divorce, which was granted in December 1994.

One of Stone's co-workers described him as a regular guy. The couple, he said, had been having marital problems but recently were spending more time together.

"Of course I have regrets," Stone said. "You'll never see a man more remorseful than me. I may have killed two people physically but I killed more than that.

"As far as I'm concerned, this is the only way I'll find peace of mind. I don't want to die. Nobody in their right mind wants to die. But given the choices...

"Let's just say I'm going to take a chance and see what's on the other side. If it's there, fine. If it's not, so be it."