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BRECKENRIDGE (UPI) -Claude Dean (Buck) Edwards, 25, soon will go down to death row at Huntsville for shooting a man in the back, but he wifl not go with the feeling that he is a cowardly killer.After all, there were three of us there with guns,” he saidthis «£in an Interview this week in his county Jail cell. Swaim (Clarence Swaim) didn’t have any chance any way you look at it Was it any worse to shoot him in the back than any other way?”Edwards, Ronnie Wilhelm and Eugene McCain on July 4, 2966, kidnaped Clarence Swaim from the Breckenridge service station he operated and took him to a field. «There Edwards killed him.Appeal Denied Last week, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Edwards’ apeal and he soon will be moved to Huntsville for hiseventual electrocution.Ronnie Wilhelm soon will be-n a 99-year prison sentence. cCain turned state's evidence and is free in bond,Edwards, a 237-pound man, five feet, 10 inches tall, said the electric chair would be a relief, in a way. He said he dreads his stay on death row waiting for the chair more than he dreads the chair itself.He said the chair is what he deserves and he does not regret killing Swaim, though he does not believe in killing, per se. He biamed Swaim’s badgering his sister and her family to pay a bill for (he murder.Edwards said he believes all his trouble started with the taking of “pills (amphetamines and barbiturates).”When I was 14 I was hopped up on pills or drinking when I had a job to do.” He said he had not taken a pill and was cold sober when he went after Swaim.“Pills just keep you from thinking. That's what they are good for, he said.Edwards said Wilhelm does not deserve 99 years in prison and that he has nothing but bate and disgust for McCain, who lied to save his ownskin.Edwards' mother, a religious woman* has visited him frequently in county jail, and Edwards believes his mother's prayers may yet save him from the chair. He said the electric chair wouldn't be so bad, if it were not for his family.
Newspaper Details
Lubbock Avalanche Journal
Lubbock, Texas, US
Sun, Apr 07, 1968
Page 12
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 07 Jul 2023
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