Raymond Lee Stewart

Raymond Lee Stewart was born on January 21, 1952, in Burlington, North Carolina. According to family testimony later presented during his clemency hearings, Stewart grew up in an extremely abusive household. One of his sisters, Faith Crocker, stated that their father routinely subjected the children to severe physical abuse and, in some cases, sexual abuse. Stewart was reportedly expelled from the family home at the age of 14 and told never to return.

After leaving home, Stewart dropped out of high school and drifted through a series of low‑paying jobs. His adolescence and early adulthood were marked by instability, limited education, and repeated contact with the criminal justice system. At some point in the early 1970s, he relocated to Rockford, Illinois.

In 1973, Stewart committed several armed robberies in the Rockford area. He later pleaded guilty to four counts of armed robbery and was sentenced to a term of 5 to 15 years in prison. One additional robbery charge was dismissed due to insufficient evidence. Stewart served approximately six years before being released on parole. He later expressed deep resentment toward the justice system for this conviction, which he believed had unfairly shaped his life.

By late 1980, Stewart’s emotional state had deteriorated further. He became enraged after a landlord refused to return a $50 security deposit and after learning that his girlfriend had given birth to their daughter and undergone a tubal ligation without informing him.

Raymond Lee Stewart’s killing spree began on the afternoon of January 27, 1981, in Rockford, Illinois. Armed with a .38‑caliber revolver, Stewart entered a neighborhood grocery store on the city’s west side and shot Willie Fredd, a 54‑year‑old store owner who had previously witnessed Stewart commit a robbery in 1973. Stewart then shot and killed Albert Pearson, a 20‑year‑old stock clerk who was working in the store at the time. Both men died at the scene.

The following day, January 28, 1981, Stewart continued his rampage. He shot and killed Kevin Kaiser, an 18‑year‑old service station attendant, at a gas station located approximately two miles from the first crime scene. Within 24 hours of that murder, Stewart fatally shot Kenny Foust, a 35‑year‑old service station attendant, in a separate incident.

Stewart’s final two murders occurred in Beloit, Wisconsin, at a shopping mall RadioShack store. There, the bodies of Richard Boeck (21) and Donald Rains (26) were discovered, both having been shot in the head. Investigators determined that Stewart had led the men to the back of the store before shooting them multiple times, execution‑style.

Law enforcement agencies in Illinois and Wisconsin connected the killings through ballistic evidence and witness accounts. Stewart fled the Midwest and was eventually tracked down and arrested in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 21, 1981, without further incident.

Stewart was tried and convicted of three of the Illinois murders and the two Wisconsin murders. He received two consecutive life sentences for the Wisconsin killings and a death sentence for the Illinois murders. During one of his murder trials in April 1982, Stewart attempted to escape by fleeing the courtroom and hiding inside an oil container. He was shot in the shoulder during the attempt and quickly recaptured.

After years of appeals, Stewart’s execution date was set. During a clemency hearing before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, he submitted a recorded statement in which he cited racial hatred, personal grievances, and anger over his prior robbery conviction as motivations for the killings. He also expressed remorse and acknowledged that his victims had done nothing to deserve their deaths.

Despite testimony from some family members of the victims who opposed capital punishment, the clemency petition was denied. On September 18, 1996, Raymond Lee Stewart was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center. His final meal included fried perch, potato salad, coleslaw, canned peaches, and fruit juice. His last words were:

“Hello to everyone. May you all have peace because of this. May my victims' families have peace.”