Governor Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia issued a stay of execution for Levar Walton about an hour before he was due to be put to death on the evening of 8 June. The reprieve is for six months and is for the purpose of obtaining an evaluation of Levar Walton’s mental competency. Levar Walton, aged 27, suffers from serious mental illness. He was sentenced to death in 1997 for the murders of an elderly white couple, Elizabeth and Jesse Hendrick, aged 81 and 80, and a 33-year-old black man, Archie Moore, in the town of Danville in November 1996.
