Bio

Frederick Lashley was born on March 10, 1964. He was 17 years old when he attacked Janie Tracy in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 9, 1981. Tracy was his cousin and foster mother, and she had helped raise him from the time he was about two years old until he was 16. Missouri Supreme Court records state that Lashley had lived with and been cared for by Tracy and her mother for most of his childhood.

Janie Tracy had serious health problems before the attack. She had heart trouble, diabetes, and a neuromuscular condition that caused her to limp and use a walking cane. She had also undergone brain surgery years earlier, which left a vulnerable soft spot on the left side of her head. Court records state that Lashley had been present before when people discussed that vulnerable area.

Before the murder, Lashley had no confirmed adult criminal conviction used as a major part of the sentencing record, but the U.S. Supreme Court later noted that, after his arrest, he confessed to several other crimes committed after reaching adult status. Because he was 17 at the time of the crime, his age became one of the major issues in appeals and public debate. Missouri law at that time treated him as an adult for capital prosecution.

Murder Story

On the night of April 9, 1981, Janie Tracy was visiting her sister several blocks away from her St. Louis apartment. While she was gone, Frederick Lashley entered her apartment by climbing through the top of a rear porch window. He unscrewed the light bulb in the front room so the light would not come on when Tracy returned. Court records state that his admitted purpose was to ambush her and take her money.

Lashley waited in the dark in a bedroom near the front room. He was armed with a cast-iron skillet, and the jury could also find that he had a butcher knife. When Tracy came home and tried to turn on the light, the room stayed dark. As she moved farther inside and reached for another light switch, Lashley struck her on the head with the skillet. The blow was strong enough to break the skillet into two pieces.

A struggle followed. Federal appellate records state that Lashley knew Tracy had a soft spot in her skull from earlier surgery. During the attack, he stabbed her in that vulnerable area with a butcher knife. He then took about $15 from her purse, stole her car keys, locked the apartment, and drove away in her car.

Lashley was arrested later that night while driving Tracy’s stolen vehicle. Hospital records showed that Tracy arrived comatose and brain dead. She had a head wound above one ear and a knife wound where the blade entered through the soft spot in her skull and penetrated her brain. Federal court records state that Tracy died two days after the attack.

Lashley was charged with capital murder. A Missouri jury convicted him and sentenced him to death. The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence in 1984. The court described the crime as the murder of a physically disabled 55-year-old cousin and foster mother during a robbery for $15.

Lashley continued to appeal his conviction and sentence for years. In 1992, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed his conviction but reversed the death sentence and ordered resentencing. The issue involved the trial court’s refusal to give a requested mitigating-circumstance instruction about no significant history of prior criminal activity.

On March 8, 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Eighth Circuit’s ruling and reinstated the death sentence. The Court held that the trial judge had not been required to give the mitigating instruction without supporting evidence in the record.

In the final weeks before the execution, Lashley’s case drew attention because he was 17 years old at the time of the murder. Amnesty International reported that he was scheduled to be executed on July 28, 1993, and raised concerns about the fairness of the case, including the fact that he had been convicted and sentenced by an all-white jury.

Frederick Lashley was executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri on July 28, 1993. He was 29 years old. The execution occurred years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, which later barred the execution of offenders who were under 18 at the time of their crimes.