Priscilla Joyce Ford (February 10, 1929 – January 29, 2005) was a convicted American

mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

er, who was sentenced to death for killing six people on Thanksgiving Day 1980 in

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...

by driving her car on the sidewalk into a crowd of people. She injured 23 more. A former teacher in New York, Ford had struggled for years with mental illness: she had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia with religious and violent tendencies. She had been treated and released by seven different hospitals before moving to Reno in 1980. Ford filed numerous appeals of her death sentence. She was still being held on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...

when she died of

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...

in prison, at the age of 75. She had long been a heavy smoker.

Thanksgiving Day events

In Reno, Nevada, a crowd was gathered to see the annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Suddenly someone drove a Lincoln Continental car onto the sidewalk next to Spring Street and through the crowd for an estimated 100 feet. A total of six people were killed by this attack, and 23 more were injured. Police at the scene ordered the driver out of the car. The woman did not resist and was identified as Priscilla Joyce Ford, who said she had moved to Reno that year. Ford's blood-alcohol ratio was later found to be .162, above the legal limit for driving. As the Deputy District Attorney on call, John Oakes went to the crime scene. He said that Ford was remarkably calm when he talked with her. When she asked Oakes how many people she killed, he said, "five or six," and she said, "good". Another officer reported that Ford said, "The more dead, the better," while she was in custody.

Arrest and trial

After being arrested, Ford was found to have had a history of mental illness and had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, resulting in violent tendencies. She had been hospitalized and treated over the years at seven different facilities before moving to Reno. She was assigned a Public Defender, who asked for a mental evaluation. On January 29, 1981, Ford was found incompetent to stand trial. She was held in custody, sent to Lake’s Crossing for mental treatment. During this period and later, she reported on hearing the voices of such figures as Joan Bennett Kennedy (wife of US Senator Edward Kennedy and journalist

Barbara Walters Barbara Jill Walters (born September 25, 1929) is an American broadcast journalist and television personality. Known for her interviewing ability and popularity with viewers, Walters appeared as a host of numerous television programs, including ...

. On April 29, 1981, Ford was ordered to submit to treatment, including drug therapy." On August 4, 1981, Ford was found competent to stand trial. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The trial lasted almost five months, the longest in northern Nevada history. The jury consisted of seven women and five men. Ford insisted on testifying in her defense. She stated that she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and therefore incapable of sin. in his summary, her Public Defender Lew Carnahan noted her history of severe mental illness and said that the death penalty would be an injustice. He pleaded for her to be sentenced to life in a criminal mental institution where she could be treated. The District Attorney Cal Dunlap described her as "evil personified" and fought for Ford to be found legally sane at the time of her driving into the crowd. After 13 hours of deliberation, the jury found Ford guilty on six counts of murder and 23 counts of attempted murder on March 19, 1982. On March 28, 1982, the jury voted separately on the death penalty, and decided in favor of capital punishment.

Biography

Ford was born in 1929 in

Berrien Springs, Michigan Berrien Springs is a village in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,800 at the time of the 2010 census. The village is located within Oronoko Charter Township. History Berrien Springs, like Berrien County, is na ...

and grew up there. She attended public schools and was trained as a teacher. Ford taught school in New York for some years before her life began to deteriorate. She married twice and had a total of three children, two sons and a daughter. In 1957, Ford shot her second husband in self-defense; she said he had abused her. She shot herself afterward, but survived. Her daughter Wynter Scott was born in 1962. When Wynter was eleven, Ford was arrested for trespassing and assault. The state's child welfare office removed the girl and ultimately placed her with Ford's relatives in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. Through the years Ford became a heavy smoker, a habit often associated with mental illness. She developed

. She died of that progressive disease in prison at the age of 75, on January 29, 2005. Because of her death sentence and several appeals, she was held on

for 20 years at Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center in

North Las Vegas, Nevada North Las Vegas is a suburban city in Clark County, Nevada, United States, in the Las Vegas Valley. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 216,961, with an estimated population of 251,974 in 2019. The city was incorporated on May 1, 19 ...

. Such prisoners are highly isolated, which may cause or aggravate mental illness.

Thanksgiving Day events

Arrest and trial

Biography

Notes

References

See also