Ricky Lee Green

Ricky Lee Green (December 27, 1960 – October 8, 1997) was an American serial killer who murdered at least four people in Texas between 1985 and 1986, at least two of which were killed with the help of his wife, Sharon.^[1] Convicted of all four murders and sentenced to death in one case, Green was executed at the Huntsville Unit in 1997.^[2]

Early life[]

Ricky Lee Green was born on December 27, 1960 in Fort Worth, Texas, one of several children born to Bill Green and his wife. Together with his siblings, he was physically abused by his father on an almost daily basis, with the elder Green applying electro shocks to their bodies, punching them in the stomachs or holding them underwater until they nearly drowned when they went on fishing trips.^[3] At some point during his childhood, Green lost use in one eye after suffering an accident involving barbed wire, which later had to be replaced with a glass eye. He attended school up until the 8th grade, when he dropped out and started working as a radiator repairman.^[3] He later met and subsequently married Sharon Dollar, a fellow drug abuser whom would later aid in killing his victims.^[2]

Murders[]

Sometime in 1985, Green met two of his future victims, 16-year-old Jeffery Lynn Davis and 28-year-old KXAS-TV sales executive Steven M. Fefferman, at Lake Worth.^[4] On March 27, 1985, Davis disappeared from Fort Worth, with his nearly decapitated, mutilated and castrated body found the next April in a swamp, near the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge.^[2]

On October 12, 1985, Green picked up 28-year-old Betty Jo Monroe, a topless dancer and drifter living in Amarillo, and then drove to the Greens' mobile home in Boyd.^[5] There, both Ricky and Sharon sexually assaulted her before stabbing her 17 times, hitting her on the head with a hammer and mutilating one of her breasts. After killing Monroe, Green drove to the rural area of Flatwood, where he dumped her body.^[6] The body was found the next day, but coroners were unable to establish the victim's identity at the time.^[7]

A month later, on November 23, Green met 27-year-old Sandra Lorraine Bailey at a club in Fort Worth, where she had gone to celebrate her cousin's birthday. Managing to convince her to accompany him back to his mobile home, where Bailey was sexually assaulted by both Ricky and Sharon, who then proceeded to stab her 30 times and bludgeon her with a hammer.^[4] Allegedly, this was done while Ricky was raping her. Her nude body was initially left in the trailer, and dumped in drainage culvert near Henrietta the next day, where it was later found on December 2nd.^[7]

Green's final known killing occurred on December 29, 1986, when he picked up his previous acquaintance, Fefferman, at the beach, as the former wanted to celebrate his birthday by having casual sex. Fefferman went with Green back to his home, whereupon Green tied his hands and feet to the bed with neckties, repeatedly stabbing his unassuming victim with a butcher knife and finally castrating him.^[4] Green then covered the body with linen,^[8] stole all the money from the house and fled in Fefferman's car.^[3]

Trial, imprisonment and execution[]

Over the next two years, Sharon divorced her husband and went to a drug addiction counsellor in Stephenville, to whom she eventually confessed that she had been pressured into killing two women by Ricky. On the counsellor's advice, she was encouraged to inform local police about the crimes, based on which, together with tips from Crime Stoppers and the fact that Green was a suspect in a previous murder case, Ricky was arrested on April 27, 1989.^[9] While held in the Tarrant County jail on $1.25 million bond, Green began giving official confessions about the four murders, in addition to being questioned in eight other, similar killings that had occurred in the Fort Worth area.^[9]

During the investigation, authorities were told by Sharon and Bill Green about a mysterious mattress, allegedly covered in a potential fifth victim's blood, which Ricky had given to his father for storage.^[10] According to them, Green had invited an unknown man to his mobile home in 1984 or 1985, stabbed him during sex and then dropped him off at a hospital in Fort Worth. While this lead was investigated, whether it was verified or not remains unclear.^[10]

Over the next two months, Green gave repeated and detailed confessions regarding the four murders, reiterating that he never forced his ex-wife to help and that she was a willing participant.^[11] This came after Sharon claimed to investigators that she was forced to kill the two women under Ricky's commands, or else he would kill her instead.^[5] In June 1989, when both he and Sharon were charged with the murders of Monroe and Bailey, Green went on a hunger strike over the squalid prison conditions.^[11]

In February 1990, Sharon Green was found guilty in the Monroe and Bailey murders, but, as part of a plea bargain, she was sentenced to 10 years probation.^[12][13] Meanwhile, Green's trial had to be temporarily delayed because one of the jurors was expecting a child.^[4] After it resumed in a few days, Green was found guilty of capital murder by the jury, with his only reaction upon being read the verdict was that he wasn't surprised at the outcome.^[14]

Due to the heavy media coverage of the trial, the venue was moved to Austin. During the penalty phase, in spite of Green's attorneys' demands, prosecutors informed the jury about the other pending charges against the defendant.^[15] When testimonies were read by the defense, which tried to point towards Bill Green's abuse of his children as a main drive for his son's murders, a feud began between the family members which resulted in Justice Joe Drago warning them that they would be imprisoned for contempt if they didn't cease.^[16]

On September 22, 1990, after deliberating less than an hour on the case, Ricky Lee Green was sentenced to death via jury verdict for the murder of Fefferman.^[17] He was later given a life sentence for the Bailey, and as part of a guilty plea, he was given a second life term in the Davis case, while the charges in the Monroe slaying were altogether dropped.^[1] His death sentence was automatically appealed to a federal court in Fort Worth, which granted him a stay of execution in 1994, until all of his appeals were properly reviewed by the state.^[3]

Eventually, all of his appeals for commutation were rejected, and on October 8, 1997, Ricky Lee Green was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit.^[2] In a break of procedure, prison officials had to use only a single needle instead of the customary two, as they had trouble finding a suitable vein to inject due to Green's long-time drug addiction.^[2] In his final statement, he expressed gratitude to God, his friends and fellow death row inmates, apologized to his victims' relatives and claimed that his death wasn't going to solve anything.^[2]

See also[]

• Capital punishment in Texas
• Capital punishment in the United States
• List of people executed in Texas, 1990–1999
• List of serial killers by number of victims
• List of serial killers in the United States
• List of people executed by lethal injection

References[]

External links[]

• Birth Index
• Death Penalty Information on Green
• 1994 Appeal
• GREEN v. JOHNSON

Bibliography[]

• Patricia Springer (May 1, 1994). Blood Rush. Pinnacle. ISBN 0786005521.
• Laurence Tancredi (September 19, 2005). Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals about Morality. Cambridge University Press. ASIN B000SET8Q0.
• Peter Vronsky (August 7, 2007). Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters. Berkley Books. ISBN 978-0425213902.
• Bill Crawford (January 28, 2008). Texas Death Row: Executions in the Modern Era. Plume. ISBN 978-0452289307.
• Robert Keller (July 8, 2016). 50 American Serial Killers You?ve Probably Never Heard Of Volume 5. ISBN 978-1535138468.