Douglas Buchanan Jr.

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Douglas McArthur Buchanan Jr. (1968–1998) was a Virginia man who killed four relatives in a 1987 family massacre and was executed in 1998.

On September 15, 1987, in Naola, Virginia, Buchanan killed his father, Douglas Buchanan Sr. (43), his half-brothers Donald (13) and Joel (10), and later his stepmother Geraldine Patterson (31). He used a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 caliber pistol, and a knife. The killings followed an argument with his father and were driven by long-standing family tensions. Buchanan and his wife, Christianne, had discussed the plan to kill his family the day before, and they drove to the home together before the night of the murders. After the killings, the couple fled the state and were later captured in New Mexico on October 2.

Buchanan was tried in Amherst County, Virginia, and faced capital murder charges along with several counts of first-degree murder and firearm offenses. In 1988, a jury found him guilty of capital murder and recommended the death penalty, which the court imposed. He received four additional life terms for the other murders and 14 years for the firearm counts. His wife Christianne Buchanan was convicted as an accessory before the fact and received four consecutive life terms; she was released on parole in December 2015.

Buchanan’s case helped reach a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Buchanan v. Angelone (1998). The Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment does not require a capital-sentencing jury to be instructed on mitigating evidence.

In the end, Buchanan’s appeals exhausted, and on March 18, 1998, he was executed by lethal injection at Greensville Correctional Center in Virginia. He was 29 years old. His last meal was fried chicken, sliced bread, chocolate cake, and a beverage, and his final words were, “Basically, get the ride started. I’m ready to go.”