Charles Rodman Campbell

Charles Rodman Campbell (October 21, 1954 – May 27, 1994) was an American murderer and rapist. He was executed by hanging in 1994 by the state of Washington for a 1982 triple murder that he committed in Clearview, killing three female victims.

In 1974, Campbell attacked and sexually assaulted 23-year-old Renae Wicklund, leading to his apprehension in 1976. After Wicklund and her neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson, testified against him, Campbell was convicted of first degree assault and sodomy and received a sentence of 40 years in prison. Authorities did not make Wicklund aware of the fact that Campbell's sentence would allow him to be placed in a work release program after serving seven years behind bars despite Campbell being accused of multiple disciplinary infractions while serving his 40-year sentence, including the rape of at least two other inmates and the physical assault of a third; in 1981, he was placed in a work release facility under conditions that allowed him more freedom of movement outside of prison, unbeknownst to Wicklund.

On April 14, 1982, months after Campbell's placement in his work release program, he revisited and burglarized the Wicklund house, where then 31-year-old Renae Wicklund, her nine-year-old daughter Shannah, and 51-year-old Hendrickson were present, and murdered and mutilated all three of them. Campbell's motive for returning to Wicklund's home to further victimize her was revenge due to her and Hendrickson having testified against him during his trial for Wicklund's rape. Following his arrest, trial, and conviction, Campbell was executed by hanging, becoming one of only three people executed by hanging in the United States since 1976.

In 2023, DNA tests posthumously linked Campbell to a separate sexual assault and murder of a woman in 1975. Despite his father's domestic violence, Campbell stated in a 1982 psychological report that he admired his father and thought of his mother as weak and excessively disciplinary. Campbell began drinking and using drugs, including amphetamines and heroin, by the time he was 13 years old.

In August 1973, after his stint at the Green Hill School ended, Campbell married. He subjected his wife to domestic violence and threatened to kill several members of her family as well as her dog. In March 1974, Campbell and his wife had a daughter; on one occasion in June 1974, when their daughter was three months old, Campbell grew irate at the infant's crying and threw a butcher knife at their daughter. In August 1974, Campbell and his wife divorced, and his wife gained custody of their daughter.

Campbell faced trial in spring 1976, and he pleaded not guilty. During Campbell's trial, Wicklund and her neighbor, Barbara Hendrickson, testified in detail about the assault; Hendrickson attested to Wicklund's psychological state following the assault. A jury convicted Campbell of first degree assault and sodomy in April. On May 11, 1976, Campbell began serving three concurrent sentences, totaling 40 years, for the assault and sodomy of Wicklund as well as an unrelated 1976 burglary. Wicklund was not alerted to the fact that Campbell's sentences ran concurrently, not consecutively, meaning that he could theoretically have been paroled in significantly fewer than 40 years.

During the intervening years, Wicklund had separated from her husband, Jack, due to the lingering stress of the assault and devoted herself to raising her daughter, supporting herself and Shannah with an in-home business as an accountant for local beauty parlors, as well as helping students obtain loans for beautician school. Jack Wicklund, meanwhile, fell victim to a bizarre incident in December 1977, when he was found tied to a chair in his West Seattle home with massive third-degree burns. After receiving medical treatment, he said that a complete stranger visited his house, tied him up, doused him with gasoline, and set him on fire. Wicklund was required to wear a rubber bodysuit to protect his damaged skin. Five months later, he died when his car crashed into a tree. The exact circumstances surrounding Jack Wicklund's death are unclear, and police never satisfactorily determined whether he had been murdered or had died by suicide.

Imprisonment and work release

During his stint serving his concurrent sentences in the Washington State Reformatory, Campbell accumulated several disciplinary infractions, including possessing homemade liquor he had illicitly brewed using yeast stolen from the prison kitchen; raping at least two fellow inmates and threatening murder if one of the victims reported the rape; and physically assaulting other inmates, including one incident in which the victim needed treatment for head injuries.

Campbell also began having sex with a prison substance abuse counselor and former nun, who was later fired for this illicit relationship. In October 1982, the counselor gave birth to a son fathered by Campbell. Sometime between December 25, 1981, and January 4, 1982, Campbell's ex-wife accused him of temporarily leaving his work release to rape her. Following the closure of his original work release program in Monroe, Campbell was transferred to another program in Everett, Washington, on February 24, 1982, where he committed four additional disciplinary infractions in his first 30 days. Campbell also strangled Shannah and cut her neck so deeply, that he nearly decapitated her; her blood loss was extensive enough to make it difficult for investigators to obtain a sample of her blood, since she lost 95% of her blood, and extensive enough only takes 5% loss of blood. The blood loss caused extreme trauma, instant lung collapse, and she is estimated to have died just 100 ms after. Campbell cut Hendrickson's throat as well.

A neighbor of Wicklund's told police she saw Campbell sneaking around Wicklund's yard with a knife that morning, and other neighbors observed him heading towards the house with a large blanket roll in his hands. After investigating the crime scene, investigators found a drinking glass with a bloody handprint on it which matched Campbell's fingerprints; Campbell also left a trail of Renae Wicklund's jewelry running from the front door of the house down the walkway. Campbell's car had dried blood on the driver's side door handle, and Shannah's earring was found in the back seat. Investigators found a pair of Renae's earrings in Campbell's pants pockets during his arrest. In addition, a fellow work release resident directed police to a location along the banks of the Snohomish River, where he and Campbell had been on the evening of April 14. There, diving units recovered several pieces of clothing, decoration, and jewelry, including pottery, other pairs of earrings, a bracelet, necklaces, a pair of jeans, and a shirt from the river. When questioned by police, Donald Hendrickson stated that "the man who'd attacked Renae eight years earlier" was the only possible perpetrator he could think of.

Campbell was arrested at the Monroe Reformatory on April 19, and charged with first degree murder. Held in the Snohomish County Jail, he was unpopular with other prisoners because he had murdered a child; additionally, the circumstances of his crime meant that stricter rules would be imposed on the freedoms of inmates on parole.

Trial

At Campbell's November 1982 trial, he refused to testify in his defense or discuss the murders at all. Testifying for the prosecution were neighbors who had seen him sneaking around the house on the afternoon of April 14, and the substance abuse counselor, who was his girlfriend by that time, who said that on the morning of the killings, he'd been at her home, where he consumed an entire six pack of beer. The next day, she noticed one of her kitchen knives was missing. His girlfriend testified that Campbell had "considerable resentment" towards Renae Wicklund and had driven past her home a couple of times while on work release. Campbell took the unusual step of cross-examining his girlfriend himself, and got her to admit that he had never told her he wanted to harm Renae Wicklund.

The defense did not call any witnesses or present any evidence other than that the case was a miscarriage of justice because investigators immediately focused on Campbell and did not search for any other potential suspects. Numerous citizens of Clearview had signed a petition demanding the death penalty for him, and the jury agreed, arguing that he showed no signs whatsoever of remorse for killing the Wicklunds and Barbara Hendrickson. During the trial, Campbell remained for the most part detached, and said little. Even the crime scene and autopsy photos (see below) did not arouse much noticeable emotion in him. Renae Wicklund's mother and sister, who lived in North Dakota, were particularly shocked by the murders because she had never told them about being raped eight years earlier.

During the trial, Campbell's attorneys argued that he could not be charged with rape, since the wound in Renae Wicklund's vagina was a post-mortem injury that had not bled. Snohomish County Coroner Dr. Clayton Haberman, who performed the autopsies, pointed out that brain death does not occur until a few minutes after circulation ceases, and she could technically have still been alive when the assault happened, but it may just as easily have been hours later. He also noted that Shannah lost so much blood that it was difficult to collect a sample from her. Judge Dennis Britt thus ordered the jury to disregard the rape allegations. The defense also protested the prosecution's decision to display graphic autopsy photos of the Wicklunds and Barbara Hendrickson. Judge Britt allowed this, but said that the jurors could decide for themselves whether they wanted to see their blood-splattered clothing.

Because the only living witness to the murders would not speak of or recount what happened, investigators had to roughly piece together the sequence of events on April 14. Renae Wicklund had obviously been attacked first. Shannah was found lying in the bedroom next to her, and it was believed that Campbell may have shown the girl her mother's lifeless body prior to slitting her throat. They were probably both dead by the time Barbara Hendrickson entered the home. Knocked-over furniture in the living room indicated that she could have run into Campbell and attempted to flee, but was caught. The bodies were all positioned in such a way that "the effect seems to have been to intentionally shock whoever came across them".

On November 26, 1982, Campbell was convicted of the three murders of Renae Wicklund, Shannah Wicklund, and Barbara Hendrickson. On December 17, 1982, he was condemned to death.

While his case was at various stages of appeal, he remained a much-feared figure in Walla Walla's death row for the next decade, even spitting at then-Governor Booth Gardner when he peered into his cell.

While Campbell was on death row, his mother stated that she still loved Campbell but supported his death sentence.

On October 6, 1987, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied another of Campbell's appeal petitions, but they did not lift his stay of execution until January 25, 1989. In the meantime, on November 7, 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Campbell's case. On February 15, 1989, Campbell had a third death warrant signed, scheduling his execution for March 30, 1989. Only 33 hours before that date of execution, Campbell received a stay of execution from the Ninth Circuit Court, with them citing that Campbell had several remaining appeals. On September 13, 1991, Campbell filed a third federal appeal, which was dismissed by a U.S. District Court on March 9, 1992.

The 1989 stay of execution remained active until April 14, 1994, when the Ninth Circuit Court lifted the stay; the next day, April 15, Campbell's fourth and final death warrant was signed, scheduling Campbell's execution to take place on May 27, 1994. Campbell refused to choose between the two, meaning his method of execution would, by default, be hanging.

On May 24, 1994, three days prior to Campbell's execution, the state clemency board unanimously refused Campbell's plea for mercy in a 4–0 vote, with one member abstaining. Despite rejecting Campbell's offer for a meeting earlier, on the night of May 24, Lowry made the unprecedented decision to hold a private meeting with Campbell in a section of Washington State's death row. His meeting with Campbell lasted approximately 30 minutes. Lowry's press secretary characterized the meeting as "Mr. Campbell's opportunity" to advocate for the commutation of his sentence to life without parole. Lowry also met with relatives of Campbell's victims, as well as a separate group of death penalty opponents, prior to making his final decision regarding Campbell's fate. Lowry's office reported receiving an overwhelming amount of letters from members of the public who were in support of Campbell's execution, 3,789 letters, compared to 532 letters in opposition. Lowry was personally opposed to capital punishment and had the power under Washington State law to grant clemency and pardons without requiring a recommendation from the state's clemency board, but one of his spokespeople stated that Lowry would deal with pending executions on a case-by-case basis. After completing the meetings and reviewing the evidence in Campbell's case, Lowry issued a short statement confirming he would not interfere in Campbell's case, allowing the execution to proceed. Later, while cleaning out Campbell's former cell, authorities found a four-inch piece of metal that he had been sharpening into a knife.

Officials served Campbell his last meal, a fish dinner, two hours before the hanging took place, and he refused to eat most of it. Campbell spent his final hours visiting and talking to friends and relatives, including an attorney, his son, and his girlfriend, the ex-prison counselor with whom he had his son.

Execution

Witnesses to Campbell's execution included twelve reporters affiliated with various media outlets, three relatives of the victims' families, the Snohomish County Prosecutor, and Campbell's attorney. Authorities had to forcibly strap Campbell to a board in order to execute him, stating that he had trouble walking and standing on his own. Guards carried Campbell to the gallows strapped rigidly to the board. Campbell then repeatedly moved his head, giving prison officials difficulty in placing a hood over his head before the trap door was opened.

Following Campbell's hanging, the King County Medical Examiner's Office conducted an autopsy on his remains. Medical Examiner Donald Reay determined Campbell experienced a broken neck and broken spinal cord following his drop from the gallows' trap door, and Reay also found that Campbell died seconds after the drop. After his execution, no one stepped forward to claim his remains, so Walla Walla County officials cremated his body, although his girlfriend and son later claimed his remains, as well as Campbell's remaining personal effects, on May 31, as Campbell had requested before his execution.

Aftermath

The triple murders sparked legislative changes in Washington State, namely the passage of laws strengthening and broadening the state's death penalty, allowing for its application in a wider set of circumstances.

Charles Rodman Campbell

Imprisonment and work release

Trial

Execution

Aftermath

See also

References