Mark Gardner (Execution of)

Mark Gardner was executed by lethal injection on September 8, 1999, for the strangulation murder of a Fort Smith (Sebastian County) couple and their daughter fourteen years earlier.

Joe Joyce, aged fifty-seven, and Martha Joyce, aged sixty, attended a funeral at Fort Smith National Cemetery on December 13, 1985. Their daughter Sarah McCurdy, thirty-one, left work when she could not reach them and arrived at their home, which was next door to her house, as they returned from the funeral. When they entered the Joyce house, they apparently surprised a burglar, who then strangled all three of them.

The bodies were discovered after McCurdy failed to return to her job. The Arkansas Democrat reported that evidence showed the killer “used his hands, a coat hanger, towel and duct tape to strangle the three.”

The next day, Mark Gardner, twenty-nine, a Murphysboro, Illinois, man who had been in an out of penal institutions since the age of twelve, aroused suspicion when he tried to sell some jewelry to a Little Rock (Pulaski County) pawnbroker. Undercover officers of the Arkansas State Police offered to drive Gardner to Fort Smith and arrested him in Clarksville (Johnson County).

Gardner was charged with capital murder. At his trial in June 1986, prosecutors showed jurors items that “were wrapped around the necks of the victims: neckties, a belt and a clothes hanger.” They also alleged that he sexually assaulted McCurdy.

More details came out in the trial about how Gardner was caught. Witnesses said that Gardner aroused suspicion when he tried to sell jewelry to two men working at a restaurant in the Greyhound bus station in Little Rock. They instead directed him to Maxie’s Pawn Shop, whose owner, Maxie Iskowitz, testified that Gardner sold him several pieces of jewelry for fifty dollars.

One of the restaurant workers called his brother-in-law, an Arkansas State Police officer, and told him about Gardner. Two undercover officers were sent to the bus station, and when they heard him asking for a ride to Fort Smith they offered to drive him there. One testified that “Gardner threatened to kill him and his partner if they turned out to be police officers. He said Gardner told them he was possessed by demons.” When they reached Clarksville, they pulled over and arrested him at a convenience store.

Gardner did not testify in the trial, but an investigator said Gardner told him that “he had purchased a satchel of jewelry from a man at the Fort Smith bus station” and that Gardner “reacted with surprise and disbelief” when he was told the jewelry he pawned was connected to a murder.

The Fort Smith jury deliberated for three hours on June 7, 1986, before convicting him of two counts of capital murder, then retired for two more hours before recommending the death sentence. Circuit Judge John Langston sentenced Gardner to die on January 27, 1987.

Illinois lawmen, meanwhile, had been seeking Gardner on charges of rape, armed robbery, and home invasion for an incident several weeks before the Fort Smith murders. He was taken to Peoria County, Illinois, for trial in 1987; officials there said they wanted him to face time in Illinois if he was released on appeal in Arkansas. Gardner was convicted and sentenced to ninety years in prison.

After years of court appeals, Governor Mike Huckabee set the date of September 8, 1999, for Gardner and convicted murderer Alan Willett to die by lethal injection. Pope John Paul II, appealing to Huckabee’s “compassion and magnanimity,” and Arkansas Bishop Andrew J. McDonald both asked the governor to grant the condemned men clemency. He declined.

Gardner was taken into the execution chamber of the Cummins Unit on the evening of September 8, 1999. When asked if he had any last words, he replied, “Blessed…are those who are called to the Lord’s supper, a never-ending feast awaits me.” The injection began at 8:02 p.m., and Gardner was declared dead thirteen minutes later. Willett was executed afterward.

For additional information:
“Former Convict Fails to Enter Plea to Capital Murder Charge.” Arkansas Democrat, December 17, 1985, pp. 1D, 3D.

George, Emmett. “Death-Row Inmate Pulls Request for Clemency, Seeks DNA Tests.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 24, 1999, p. 8B.

“He Purchased Jewelry, Pawnbroker Tells Trial.” Arkansas Gazette, June 6, 1986, p. 7A.

“Illinois Suspect Charged in Fort Smith Triple Killing.” Arkansas Democrat, December 15, 1985, p. 15A.

“Judge Sentences Man to Death for Murder.” Arkansas Democrat, June 8, 1986, p. 20A.

Leveritt, Mara. “Mark and Me.” Arkansas Times, October 15, 1999, pp. 10–13.

“Murder Trial Testimony Ends, Deliberations Set.” Arkansas Gazette, June 7, 1986, p. 11A.

“Police Arrest Suspect in Slaying of Three.” Arkansas Gazette, December 14, 1985, p. 14A.

“Pope Seeks Clemency for Two Arkansas Prisoners.” [Wichita, Kansas] Catholic Advance, September 3, 1999, p. 5.

“State Briefs.” Arkansas Democrat, June 6, 1986, p. 2D.

“Two Men Executed in Arkansas.” Indiana [Pennsylvania] Gazette, September 9, 1999, p. 4.

“Verdict Guilty in Deaths.” Arkansas Gazette, June 8, 1986, p. 11A.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas