On February 24, 1986, in Talladega, Alabama, Sherri Weathers, a 24-year-old deaf student at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, and her sons, Chad, 5, and Joey, 4, were found dead. No one had seen them for days. Their neighbor, Linda Jarman, a deaf teacher at the institute, had been killed the same night. All four had been strangled.
The man the women had been seen with was a new arrival in town who called himself Danial Spence. Six months later he was arrested in Tennessee and identified as Daniel Lee Siebert, a free-lance artist with an earlier conviction for voluntary manslaughter. He admitted the Talladega killings. Two Alabama juries convicted him of capital murder in 1987, and he was sentenced to death twice. His appeals ran for twenty years. In October 2007, dying of pancreatic cancer, he came within a day of execution before a federal appeals court stopped it. He died on death row on April 22, 2008.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals described him as a free-lance artist and gave his age at the time of the Talladega killings as 31. Associated Press reports in 2007 described him as an art teacher before his arrest, and said that in prison he drew pictures that were sold on several internet sites.
His defense lawyer, George Sims, told the television station NBC 15 in 2019 that Siebert had a tough childhood, which Sims put down to possible abuse by his father.
He had a criminal record before he reached Alabama. At his sentencing hearings, the state proved a prior conviction for voluntary manslaughter, for which he had received a ten-year sentence, and the appeals court treated it as a prior felony involving the use or threat of violence. An officer testified to the violence of that earlier killing. The 2019 NBC 15 report, drawing on the former Talladega district attorney Robert Rumsey, said Siebert had served prison time in the late 1970s on a manslaughter charge, that he was wanted in California on assault charges, and that an earlier victim in Nevada had not survived.
In late December 1985, a man driving east from Los Angeles to take up work in the theater program at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind picked up a hitchhiker in Tucson, Arizona. The hitchhiker said his name was Danial Spence. He was heading north toward Illinois, and the two parted just north of Jackson, Mississippi. The driver reached Talladega on January 9, 1986. Spence arrived on January 20.
The driver had recruited him to work as a set designer for the institute's theater program. The appeals court's account of the Jarman trial says he worked at the institute's E. H. Gentry School in return for his meals. The institute, founded in 1858, is the state's school system for deaf and blind students, with its main campuses in Talladega; the E. H. Gentry facility, opened in the 1960s, is its adult vocational center, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
The two men first shared an apartment at the institute and, about a week and a half later, moved to another building in town. Soon after the move, Siebert began dating Sherri Weathers, a deaf student at the institute. The institute did not allow such relationships, and on February 16, 1986, his roommate moved out. The roommate last saw him on February 19. They had arranged that he would pick Siebert up the next morning for a faculty meeting. When he came by, Siebert was gone.
Sherri Weathers was 24, a deaf student at the institute, and the mother of two boys, Chad, 5, and Joseph, called Joey, 4. She lived with her sons in an apartment in Talladega. Linda Jarman, her next-door neighbor, was also deaf and taught at the institute's E. H. Gentry School.
At about 8 p.m. on February 19, 1986, Siebert was seen buying beer with Sherri Weathers and Linda Jarman. A neighbor came home that evening to find a note from Weathers inviting him over to play cards. He arrived at about 10:30 p.m. The two women told him Siebert had gone for more beer in Jarman's car, a 1973 Buick that Jarman had allowed him to use. The neighbor stayed until about 11:30 p.m. or midnight. Siebert had not come back. Another neighbor, a deaf man, saw Siebert and Weathers fighting that night.
In his own later statement, as the Court of Criminal Appeals summarized it, Siebert admitted strangling Sherri Weathers and both boys, and then Linda Jarman, later that night. He took Jarman's stereo and her car and drove out of Talladega.
The autopsies found that all three died of strangulation.
For several days no one saw Weathers or her sons. The deaf neighbor who had seen the fight grew worried. By Sunday, February 23, he still had not seen the family, and on Monday he told a social worker at the institute. She made calls, learned that no one had seen the family for days, and with others found the three bodies that day. Police later cleared the neighbor.
Investigators identified the man who called himself Spence as Daniel Lee Siebert. Two fingerprints and a palm print found on Jarman's Buick were later identified as his. Shoe prints from the Weathers apartment and from the apartment Siebert had rented were consistent in tread and approximate size.
About 13 days after the killings, in March 1986, the Buick was found abandoned near Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with a flat tire. Inside were a purse holding a receipt bearing Sherri Weathers's name and a brass key to Siebert's apartment in Talladega. At an abandoned campsite nearby, officers found business cards in the name of Danial Spence, photographs of Sherri Weathers, a mailgram addressed to his former roommate, a birth certificate in the name of Danny Ray Spence, an art pad bearing Weathers's name, Siebert's own birth certificate, a letter to his mother, and two sheets of paper on which the names Sherri Weathers, Chad Weathers and Joseph Weathers were written. Fibers on clothing at the camp matched the red carpet in his apartment.
He was using the boys' names. On March 10, 1986, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, he identified himself to Officer Harold Hutchins of the Atlantic City Police Department with a Social Security card in the name of Chad Weathers. On June 14, 1986, in New Kent County, Virginia, he identified himself to Deputy Joseph McLaughlin of the New Kent County Sheriff's Department with a Social Security card in the name of Joseph Charles Weathers. Police later said he had used several aliases and had passed through Elizabethtown, Atlantic City and New Kent County during the manhunt, according to the AP.
Robert Rumsey, the former Talladega district attorney, told NBC 15 in 2019 that investigators guessed Siebert was moving west through Tennessee. A telephone call he made to a friend in Nevada placed him at a pay phone just west of Nashville, and he was caught within a few days.
He was arrested in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, on September 5, 1986. He was carrying a Social Security card in the name of Joseph C. Weathers and a torn manila envelope bearing the letters "-eathers, Joseph."
Captain Willard Hurst of the Talladega Police Department read Siebert his Miranda rights when he was arrested and again at the Humphreys County jail in Tennessee. Siebert waived them. He told Hurst that he would admit to the killings but would not go into the details until he was back in Alabama, and Hurst agreed. He then gave a statement in which he admitted strangling Sherri Weathers and her sons and said he had abandoned the car in Kentucky after it had two flat tires. He also gave a statement about Linda Jarman's death.
He was told of his right to an extradition hearing and to a lawyer, said he did not want an attorney, and signed a waiver. Back in Talladega, Hurst warned him of his rights again, and Siebert made a further statement.
The two cases were tried separately, both before Judge William C. Sullivan. The Jarman case came first, in Talladega County. The defense asked for funds for a polling expert and for anonymous juror questionnaires to deal with pretrial publicity; the court refused. Of 66 people in the jury pool, 21 had heard of the case and three were excused for cause.
The charge was capital murder: murder committed during a robbery, the robbery being the taking of Jarman's car. The defense argued that Siebert had only borrowed it. Prosecutors pointed to a note from Sherri Weathers that read, "He used Linda's car," and argued that he had meant to keep it all along. The appeals court later held that his intent was for the jury to decide, and that the jury could find he planned to keep the car and leave it out of state.
On March 19, 1987, the jury convicted him of capital murder. It recommended death by a vote of 12 to 0. At sentencing, the trial court found two aggravating circumstances, that the murder was committed during a robbery and that he had a prior conviction for a felony involving violence, and no mitigating circumstances, citing his significant criminal history, the fact that he acted alone and that he had not been under extreme disturbance or duress. On April 17, 1987, the court sentenced him to death by electrocution.
Because of pretrial publicity in Talladega County, the court moved the Weathers case to Lee County. There Siebert was tried for capital murder under the Alabama statute covering the murder of two or more people in one scheme or course of conduct. His defense challenged his Tennessee confession on two grounds. The Tennessee warning card said that anything he said "can be used against you in court," while the Alabama card said it "can and will be used" against him. And the defense argued that Hurst's agreement not to press for details until they were back in Alabama was an improper promise. The trial court admitted the statements. The jury also saw a videotape of the crime scene, made by Hurst, over defense objections that it was cumulative and inflammatory.
The jury convicted Siebert in June 1987. The date is given as June 18 in the 1999 appeals opinion and June 17 in a 2007 federal court opinion. The jury unanimously recommended death. The trial judge found one aggravating circumstance, that Siebert had previous convictions for violent felonies: the voluntary manslaughter conviction and the capital murder conviction for Linda Jarman. He found no mitigating circumstances, and wrote that Siebert "does not possess a single redeeming feature nor attribute." On August 19, 1987, Siebert was sentenced to death by electrocution.
Both death sentences were upheld. In the Weathers case, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed on June 30, 1989, in an opinion by Presiding Judge Taylor, reported as Siebert v. State, 555 So. 2d 772. It held that Miranda requires no "talismanic" form of words and that the Tennessee warning had told Siebert what he needed to know. It found that the condition about details had been set by Siebert himself, not offered by police as a promise, so his statements were voluntary. It also rejected his challenge to the manner of his return from Tennessee, holding that the way a defendant is brought into a state does not defeat its courts' jurisdiction. It upheld the videotape. And it rejected his argument that the Jarman conviction could not count as a prior violent felony because that killing took place the same night, holding that a conviction can serve as an aggravating circumstance even when the crime behind it came later. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed in Ex parte Siebert, 555 So. 2d 780, in December 1989, and the certificate of judgment issued on January 3, 1990. The United States Supreme Court denied review on June 28, 1990.
In the Jarman case, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed on October 27, 1989, in an opinion by Judge McMillan, reported as Siebert v. State, 562 So. 2d 586. It upheld the refusal of the polling expert and anonymous questionnaires, the Miranda warning, the handling of the condition about details, the robbery theory, the denial of defense challenges to two jurors, the evidence about the earlier killing and the crime-scene videotape. It found "[t]he record is devoid of any indication of plain error." The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed on May 4, 1990, finding "no error or defect in the proceedings that adversely affected the rights of the defendant." The certificate of judgment issued on May 22, 1990, and the United States Supreme Court denied review on November 5, 1990.
Siebert's lawyers filed petitions for postconviction relief under Alabama's Rule 32 in Lee County on June 30, 1992, and in Talladega County on August 25, 1992. The two were consolidated. An evidentiary hearing ran from April 3 to 5, 1995, with further evidence taken in September 1995 and January 1997. On April 4, 1995, the state argued for the first time that both petitions were too late under Alabama's two-year limit. On December 29, 1998, the circuit court adopted the state's proposed opinion and denied relief.
The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed on December 30, 1999, in an opinion by Judge Cobb. It held that the two-year period ran from the certificate of judgment, not from the United States Supreme Court's denial of review, so both petitions were late. It held that the state had not waived the time bar, and that lack of a lawyer and counsel's unfamiliarity with the deadline did not excuse the delay. It held many claims barred in any case, including claims of juror misconduct, and rejected a claim that the state had withheld earlier statements by a neighbor and mitigating evidence, noting that "Siebert presented no credible evidence in support of this claim at the evidentiary hearing." The Alabama Supreme Court denied review on September 15, 2000.
On September 14, 2001, Siebert filed a federal habeas corpus petition challenging the Weathers conviction. Among other things, it claimed his trial lawyers had failed to investigate and present mitigating evidence. The federal district court dismissed it as untimely in 2002, reasoning that a state petition rejected as late was not "properly filed" and so had not paused the federal one-year deadline. The Eleventh Circuit reversed in 2003, in Siebert v. Campbell, 334 F.3d 1018, holding that Alabama's time bar was not then firmly established and regularly followed.
On remand, the district court dismissed the petition again on October 4, 2005, this time finding all the claims procedurally defaulted, because the Eleventh Circuit had since held, in another case, that Alabama's Rule 32 time limit was firmly established and regularly followed. The Eleventh Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Rosemary Barkett, affirmed on July 13, 2006. It held that one claim, about counsel's failure to present facts about Siebert's background, had never been raised in the state petition at all, and that he had shown no cause for the default, since notice of the certificate of judgment went to his counsel as the rules required. The Supreme Court denied review in March 2007.
A separate habeas case over the Jarman conviction reached the Supreme Court in 2007. In Allen v. Siebert, decided November 5, 2007, the Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit in a per curiam opinion. It held that a state postconviction petition rejected as untimely is not "properly filed," whatever kind of time limit is involved, and so does not pause the federal deadline. Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Ginsburg, dissented. The federal district court's opinion of October 22, 2007 described the Jarman habeas case as still pending.
On July 1, 2002, Alabama made lethal injection its main method of execution, giving prisoners 30 days to choose electrocution instead. Siebert did not choose electrocution. On April 9, 2007, he sued the prison commissioner, Richard Allen, and the warden of Holman Prison in federal court in Montgomery, challenging the state's three-drug protocol.
In late May 2007 he became ill and developed jaundice. A preliminary diagnosis found pancreatic cancer and hepatitis C, and the diagnosis was later confirmed. He amended his lawsuit to argue that his illness and its treatment made it likely that an execution would cause him severe pain, including through problems finding a vein and through interactions between the execution drugs and his medication. AP reported that court papers showed he had refused cancer treatment and was taking only pain medication, and that he had signed papers declining resuscitation or other efforts to prolong his life.
On July 30, 2007, at the request of the attorney general's office, the Alabama Supreme Court set his execution for October 25, 2007, on the Weathers sentence. Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said Siebert had "exhausted all of his appeals" for the Weathers killings. No date was set on the Jarman sentence.
On October 3, 2007, Judge Mark Fuller dismissed Siebert's general challenge to the protocol, finding that his delay in bringing it was "unnecessary and inexcusable," but let the claims based on his medical condition go forward. "He will die in a matter of months no matter what happens at the end of this month," Crenshaw told the AP. Governor Bob Riley declined to delay the execution, calling the murders "monstrous, brutal and ghastly." Riley said changes to the state's procedures were complete, with new safeguards to make sure a prisoner was unconscious before receiving the drugs that stop the lungs and heart.
On October 22, 2007, Judge Fuller denied a stay. He found that Siebert had offered only an unsworn letter from a doctor who had reviewed his records but had not examined him, and that there was no evidence his pain medications would interact with the execution drugs. He also refused to grant a stay simply because the United States Supreme Court had agreed in September 2007 to review Kentucky's lethal injection protocol in Baze v. Rees. The revised Alabama procedure, finalized on October 18, did not change the type or amount of any drug, the court found.
On October 24, 2007, the day before the execution was due to take place at Holman Prison in Atmore, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit made up of Judges Tjoflat, Barkett and Wilson reversed. "We STAY his execution pending the Supreme Court's resolution of Baze v. Rees," the court wrote, and directed the district court to look at the case again once Baze was decided. Judge Tjoflat, concurring, said the outcome did not depend on Baze: the district court had already held that the medical claim stated a case and was timely, and so should have postponed the execution while it was heard. The Alabama Supreme Court had denied a stay in a one-line order the day before the execution date.
The state asked the full Eleventh Circuit to step in. According to SCOTUSblog, a majority of the participating judges voted to rehear the matter, vacated the panel's order, and imposed the delay again "pending further en banc consideration of this case." The Equal Justice Initiative wrote at the time that the stay came hours before the scheduled execution, and that the state had conceded that Siebert would die within months. In the weeks before the date, it said, he had chronic nausea, needed a feeding tube and was receiving palliative care for pain from the tumor.
The Supreme Court decided Baze v. Rees on April 16, 2008, upholding Kentucky's three-drug protocol. On Tuesday, April 22, 2008, Siebert was pronounced dead, according to Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections. He was 53. The exact cause was to be determined later, but his death appeared to be related to his terminal pancreatic cancer, the AP reported. He was never executed.
The Alabama court records describe two capital convictions, covering four victims, and an earlier voluntary manslaughter conviction. The Jarman opinion noted that when that case was tried, the Weathers charges were still pending. AP reported in 2008 that he had also been convicted of killing another Talladega woman, and that he had confessed to a number of other killings from California to New Jersey. The Alabama appeals opinions in his cases do not describe those other killings.
Speaking to NBC 15 in 2019, Rumsey said that after leaving Talladega, Siebert strangled a woman who worked as a tour guide in New Jersey and then killed someone in Virginia. Those are the former prosecutor's attributions, not findings of any court.
NBC 15 also named Linda Odum as a fifth victim in Talladega, discovered later.
Rumsey and Sims, who stood on opposite sides at trial, both told NBC 15 that Siebert came across in person as pleasant and decent. "He was a very pleasant man to talk to," Sims said.
Allen v. Siebert settled that an untimely state petition never pauses the federal habeas deadline, whatever the form of the state's time limit. His stay in October 2007 came while courts around the country were granting stays on the strength of the pending Baze case; the Equal Justice Initiative argued at the time that he would otherwise have been the only prisoner to bring such a challenge and be refused one.
Late December 1985: A theater worker driving east from Los Angeles picks up a hitchhiker calling himself Danial Spence in Tucson, Arizona.
January 20, 1986: Siebert arrives in Talladega, Alabama, to work on sets for the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind theater program.
February 16, 1986: His roommate moves out over his relationship with Sherri Weathers.
February 19, 1986: Sherri Weathers, 24, her sons Chad, 5, and Joey, 4, and her neighbor Linda Jarman are killed in Talladega.
February 24, 1986: The Weathers family is found dead.
March 1986: Jarman's Buick is found abandoned near Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with a campsite nearby.
March 10, 1986: He gives a Social Security card in Chad Weathers's name to an Atlantic City police officer.
June 14, 1986: He gives a card in Joseph Charles Weathers's name to a deputy in New Kent County, Virginia.
September 5, 1986: Arrested in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.
March 19, 1987: Convicted of capital murder of Linda Jarman, Talladega County.
April 17, 1987: Sentenced to death for the Jarman murder.
June 1987: Convicted in Lee County of the capital murder of Sherri, Chad and Joey Weathers.
August 19, 1987: Sentenced to death for the Weathers murders.
June 30, 1989: Weathers conviction affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.
October 27, 1989: Jarman conviction affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.
May 4, 1990: Alabama Supreme Court affirms the Jarman conviction.
1992: Rule 32 petitions filed in Lee and Talladega counties.
December 30, 1999: Denial of postconviction relief affirmed.
September 14, 2001: Federal habeas petition filed.
July 13, 2006: Eleventh Circuit affirms denial of habeas relief in the Weathers case.
April 9, 2007: Lethal injection lawsuit filed.
Late May 2007: Illness begins; pancreatic cancer and hepatitis C diagnosed.
July 30, 2007: Execution set for October 25, 2007.
October 24, 2007: Eleventh Circuit stays the execution pending Baze v. Rees.
November 5, 2007: Supreme Court decides Allen v. Siebert.
April 16, 2008: Baze v. Rees decided.
April 22, 2008: Siebert dies on death row.