On February 21, 1994 Tony Fry and his accomplice, 17-year-old Bradford Hinson, used a .22 caliber weapon to shoot and kill Leland Jacobs, a Chesterfield County 42-year-old car salesman. Fry had lured Jacobs from his Ford dealership under the ruse that Fry's grandmother wanted to buy a 1994 Ford Explorer.

Leland Jacobs was robbed, shot eleven times, tied to the rear bumper of the Explorer with his necktie and dragged down a dirt road 777 feet into the woods while still alive.

About 15 minutes after the murder, a police officer who had a warrant for Fry's arrest for another crime had a tip that Fry frequented the area where Jacobs was killed and came upon Fry and Hinson as they were leaving the scene of the murder. Fry confessed when he was arrested.

In Richmond, a man scheduled to be executed Thursday for murdering a Chesterfield County car salesman lost his last appeal Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court.

By a 7-2 vote, the court rejected Tony Fry's emergency request and formal appeal.

Fry's lawyers have said he does not plan to ask Gov. Jim Gilmore for clemency. That would mean he has no appeal options left before his execution.

Fry, 23, pleaded guilty to capital murder in the February 1994 robbery and shooting death of Leland A. Jacobs, a car salesman who was accompanying Fry on a test drive. Fry shot Jacobs 11 times, then helped a companion tie Jacobs to the back of a vehicle and drag his body down a dirt road.

A medical examiner testified that Jacobs probably was still alive when he was dragged.

After a plea from Pope John Paul II last week, Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan spared the life of a triple murderer facing execution -- but Virginia death row inmate Tony Leslie Fry says he has no illusions that Gov. Jim Gilmore will spare his.

"I honestly feel that he wouldn't grant the clemency petition and that's why I didn't file one," said Fry, 23, who was reached by telephone in the death house of the Greensville Correctional Center yesterday.

He said that since he went on death row in January 1995, 36 inmates have been executed and two have received commutations. "I didn't think there'd be no chance," he said. The 2, Joseph Payne and William Saunders, are now serving life sentences.

Fry is scheduled to die by injection tomorrow for the 1994 slaying of a car salesman. The U.S. Supreme Court has turned him down and Gilmore is his last hope. Yet Fry is the 2nd Virginia condemned man in recent months to refuse to ask Gilmore for mercy.

Last December, Kevin Dwayne Cardwell did not seek clemency because his lawyer said Cardwell "did not think it would succeed and that, as he put it, (he) wanted to depart with a sense of dignity."

Including the recent commutation of Darrell Mease's death sentence in Missouri, there have been 38 death sentence commutations across the nation since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court permitted capital punishment to resume, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

More than 500 executions have taken place during the same period.

Of the 38 commutations, three were by then-Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and 2 by then-Gov. George Allen. Gilmore, once a prosecutor and now more than a year in office, has yet to commute a death sentence.

Fry admits to killing Leland A. Jacobs, 42, a car salesman with Bennett Ford, on Feb. 21, 1994.

He and an accomplice, Bradford A. Hinson, took Jacobs on a test drive. Jacobs was shot 11 times and then, while still alive, was tied to the rear bumper with his tie and dragged more than 700 feet.

Hinson is serving an 88-year sentence after being convicted of the 1st-degree murder of Jacobs, robbery and 2 counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Fry said he is sorry for what he has done. He said that several weeks ago he wrote the family of his victim to tell them "I was sorry that it happened and that I wish that I could go back and change what happened."

He said he hopes to visit with his grandmother, 2 aunts, lawyers and clergy tomorrow.

Fry said, "Since I've been on death row I've seen all these people that I've known, and even people that I haven't known, personally, I've seen them executed."

He said, "I see the reality of this....I'm prepared to die. I've been preparing for a while now.

"The United States Supreme Court turned me down Monday. So, I know now that nothing can basically stop this execution and I know now that Thursday night at 9 o'clock I'm going to be executed," he said.

David Botkins, spokesman for Attorney General Mark L. Early, said, "Of all the murderers on Virginia's death row, Tony Fry's crime was one the most predatory, horrific and brutal. It was cold-blooded and calculating."

In Jarratt, a man convicted of killing a car salesman whose bullet-riddled body was tied to a truck bumper and dragged down a dirt road was executed by injection Thursday night.

Tony Leslie Fry, 23, pleaded guilty to murder and robbery in the February 1994, slaying of Leland A. Jacobs, who worked for a Richmond-area Ford dealership.

In a final statement, Fry said he was "sorry for what I've done, and I have made peace with myself."

Jacobs was shot 11 times with a .22-caliber handgun. His necktie was tied to the rear bumper of the Explorer. A medical examiner testified that Jacobs probably was still alive when he was dragged.

A police officer who had a warrant for Fry's arrest in an unrelated case spotted Fry and an accomplice, then 17-year-old Bradford A. Hinson, leaving the scene and stopped them. Fry confessed to the killing when he was arrested.

Hinson was convicted of 1st-degree murder and robbery and is serving an 88-year sentence

Fry becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death in Virginia this year, and the 61st overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. Only Texas, with 167 executions (also since 1982), has executed more people.

Fry also becomes the 13th condemned prisoner to be executed this year in the USA, and the 513th overall since America resumed executions on Jan. 17, 1977.