Allen Janecka

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Allen Wayne Janecka (born November 3, 1949 in Colorado County , Texas , † July 24, 2003 in Huntsville (Texas) Walker County , Texas) was an American hit man . He was executed in 2003 .

Events

Allen Janecka strangled 60-year-old Gertrude Duff-Smith Zabolio at her Houston home on October 15, 1975 . The murder was commissioned by her adopted son, Markham Duff-Smith , with Janecka hired as the perpetrator through middlemen Walter Waldhauser and Paul MacDonald. Her husband Dow Zabolio was also supposed to be killed, but he was on a business trip in Austria . Janecka was able to successfully disguise the killing as a suicide and, according to the court, received a reward of $ 6,500. MacDonald reportedly received $ 3,500 for helping with the preparation. Markham Duff-Smith was targeting his adoptive mother's estate of $ 190,000, half of which he now had to share with his adoptive sister Diana Wanstrath.

Four years later, Markham Duff-Smith also wanted to murder his 36-year-old adoptive sister Diana Wanstrath and her 35-year-old husband John in order to cash in her inheritance and her husband's life insurance for $ 500,000. In order not to have to share this fortune with a living relative again, he also gave a murder assignment for their 14-month-old son Kevin. On July 5, 1979, Janecka shot and killed the family of three in their home in southwest Houston. This time, too, the investigators and experts assumed an extended suicide . According to her account, Diana is said to have killed her husband in an armchair with two headshots and then her son with a head shot in his day care center before she shot herself in the right temple. What was striking was the fact that no weapon could be found at the crime scene.

Houston detective Johnny Bonds did not believe the official version of an extended suicide and is investigating on his own. Through the ex-wife of Markham Duff-Smith, he got on the trail of Allen Janecka, who was currently on parole for burglary. The murder weapon was eventually found in his girlfriend's house in Georgia. Janecka was arrested in November 1980 and made a full confession. Paul MacDonald also testified about Zabolio's murder and was therefore only sentenced to 16 years in prison, but was released in November 1984. Waldhauser also testified extensively, pleaded guilty to complicity in three murders and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. However, he was released after nine years and moved to Arizona under a new name . Duff-Smith was sentenced to death and executed in June 1993.

Janecka was also sentenced to death in April 1981 . Although his conviction was overturned in October 1987 for an error in the indictment, he was sentenced to death again after a retrial in November 1993. The judgment and sentence were upheld by the Court of Appeal in November 1996 . In July 2003 he was in the Huntsville Unit with the lethal injection executed.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ United States Court of Appeals
  2. ↑ Final Words of executed Offenders ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / final-words.org
  3. ^ A b Johnny Bonds, a Cop Who Wouldn't Quit, Breaks the Murder Case That Became His Obsession
  4. ↑ Hitman set to die for plot that killed toddler and parents
personal data
SURNAME Janecka, Allen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Janecka, Allen Wayne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American murderer
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Colorado County , Texas
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 2003
Place of death Walker County, Texas