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Method of murder:
The victim's head
was slammed repeatedly into floor
Location: Newport News, Virginia, USA
Status:
Executed by
electrocution in Virginia on August 8,
1982
Frank James
Coppola (1944–August 10, 1982), was a former police officer from
Portsmouth, Virginia who was convicted and sentenced to death for
the 1978 capital murder of Muriel Hatchell.
According to
reports, a co-conspirator with Coppola disguised as a flower
delivery woman to enter her home, the woman pulled out a pistol from
amidst the floral display which she was carrying, allowing cover for
Coppola and others to rush into the home.
Hatchell was bound with Venetian blind
cords and then had her head was slammed repeatedly into floor by
Coppola until she died. The group fled with $3,100 in cash and some
rings from the crime scene.
On September 26,
1978, Coppola was convicted of first-degree capital murder and
sentenced to death in Virginia's electric chair. He waived his
appeals and was executed on August 10, 1982, the first person
executed in Virginia since the Supreme Court reinstituted capital
punishment in 1976. He was also the first person executed in
Virginia since 1962.
Frank Coppola, a
former police officer, maintained his innocence of the 1978 murder
of Muriel Hatchell. He dismissed his lawyers and
waived his appeals, saying that he wished to spare his family
the ''tremendous hardship'' of further appeals and to save his
children from ''schoolyard taunts''.
Murderer is executed
in Virginia after justice overrules
last stay
By Ben A.
Franklin, special to The New
York Times
August 11,
1982
Frank J. Coppola,
convicted in 1978 of beating a
Newport News woman to death, was
executed in the electric chair here
tonight after Chief Justice Warren
E. Burger overruled a stay granted
earlier today by a Federal appeals
court judge.
Mr. Coppola, a 38-year-old former
policeman, was electrocuted, as he
had said he ''adamantly'' wished to
be, in the basement of the Richmond
State Penitentiary. He was
pronounced dead at 11:29 P.M.
Frank J. Coppola
Victim: Muriel Hatchell
Hatchell was murdered during a 1978 robbery at her home in Newport
News. After Hatchell allowed a coconspirator disguised as a flower
delivery woman to enter her home, the woman pulled out a pistol from
amidst the floral display which she was carrying, allowing cover for
Coppola and others to rush into the home.
Hatchell was bound with venetian blind cords and then had her head
was slammed repeatedly into floor by Coppola until she died. The
group fled with $3,100 in cash and some rings from the crime scene.
After
his September 26, 1978 conviction, Coppola dropped appeals and
volunteered to have his sentence carried out. He was the first
inmate executed in Virginia since Carroll Garland was executed for a
Lynchburg murder in 1962.
August 10, 1982. Virginia.
Frank J. Coppola. Electrocution.
Although no media representatives
witnessed the execution and no details were ever released by the
Virginia Department of Corrections, an attorney who was present
later stated that it took two 55-second jolts of electricity to kill
Coppola. The second jolt produced the odor and sizzling sound of
burning flesh, and Coppola's head and leg caught on fire. Smoke
filled the death chamber from floor to ceiling with a smokey haze.
