Bio

John Sterling Gardner Jr. was born on April 6, 1958. He was paroled from prison approximately two months before the crimes that would send him to death row, and quickly resumed a pattern of robbery, including nightclub and motel hold-ups and a home invasion near Albemarle, North Carolina, in which he tied up and robbed an elderly couple.

Murder Story

On the morning of December 17, 1982, Gardner broke into the Rowan County home of 72-year-old retiree Ray T. Shaver while Shaver was giving his dog a bubble bath in the backyard. Gardner shot and killed him during the robbery.

Five days later, on the night of December 23, 1982, Gardner had spent the evening drinking and using methamphetamine before riding around Winston-Salem with his girlfriend and two friends. After failing to settle on a robbery target, the group drove past a Steak and Ale restaurant on South Stratford Road a little after midnight. Gardner had the driver park behind the building with the engine running and the lights off, then approached the back door carrying a 20-gauge shotgun. When 24-year-old bartender Kim Miller answered his knock and asked, "Can I help you?" Gardner forced the door open and demanded to be taken to the safe. She led him to a small office where 21-year-old management trainee Richard Adams — who had stayed late that night after his cash and receipts failed to balance, along with Miller, who had kept him company — was working at his desk. Miller handed Gardner a bag of money; startled, Adams jumped up, and Gardner shot him once in the face, killing him instantly. As Miller fell to her knees and begged for her life, Gardner placed the shotgun against her neck and fired, killing her as well. He fled with $2,696.55, which he spent on a used Chevelle, a rabbit coat, and a St. Bernard puppy for his girlfriend.

A cashier from a neighboring restaurant, Linda Cain, was walking to her car at the time and saw a man run from the Steak and Ale to a waiting car, getting direct eye contact with him for several seconds; she later identified Gardner from a police photo lineup.

On March 17, 1983, a jailed informant, Jeff Royal, implicated Gardner in the murders. When confronted, Gardner initially denied involvement, claiming a fictional accomplice named "Johnny" had confessed the crime to him. After failing a polygraph examination about a week later, Gardner gave a partial statement claiming he had been present at the restaurant but stayed in the car while Royal and "Johnny" went inside. When taken to the crime scene and an officer expressed disbelief at this account, Gardner gave a full, tape-recorded confession admitting he was the shooter, providing detailed information about the killings; he gave further clarifying details in a follow-up interview the next day, March 24. He was arrested and formally charged.

Gardner was tried before a Forsyth County jury beginning September 19, 1983, on two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Adams and Miller. At trial, he recanted his earlier confession, presented an alibi defense, and testified that he had only confessed to protect his girlfriend, claiming he had learned details of the crime from police suggestions and by secretly viewing crime scene photographs while in custody. The jury rejected this defense, convicting him on both counts under the felony murder rule, and recommended death sentences on both counts; judgment was entered September 23, 1983. Separately, Gardner reached a plea agreement for second-degree murder in the killing of Ray Shaver.

Gardner's appeals, including a claim that the state had suppressed evidence suggesting Jeff Royal himself may have been present at the crime scene, were rejected by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1992, which found the proffered evidence was not clearly exculpatory and there was no showing the state had been aware of it before trial. His attorneys separately argued in later appeals that jurors who recommended his death sentence had not been permitted to hear testimony about abuse he suffered as a child. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously denied a final stay of execution on October 22, 1992.

John Sterling Gardner Jr. was executed by lethal injection at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the early morning hours of October 23, 1992, becoming the fifth person executed in North Carolina since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1977, and the state's first execution since October 1991. He was the 27th person executed in the United States that year, the highest annual total since 47 executions were carried out nationwide in 1962. He was pronounced dead 14 minutes after the injection began. Relatives of both victims, including Richard Adams's father, Dick Adams, who had endured Gardner's stare throughout the trial, witnessed the execution. In his final statement, Gardner expressed sorrow for the victims' families while continuing to maintain his innocence to the end.