Terry Allen Langford (May 18, 1966 – February 24, 1998) was an American

convicted In law, a conviction is the verdict reached by a court of law finding a defendant guilty of a crime. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of "not proven", which is consid ...

murderer Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

who was

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital puni ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

. Langford was executed for the July 1988 murders of Ned and Celene Blackwood, in

Ovando, Montana Ovando is a census-designated place (CDP) in Powell County, Montana, United States. It is approximately fifty-four miles ENE of Missoula, Montana. The population was 71 at the 2000 census. Ovando Hoyt was postmaster from 1883 to 1898. The Bob M ...

. His case was profiled in the

true crime True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events. The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 per ...

television series, ''

Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets ''Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets'' is an American true crime television series on the Investigation Discovery Network. The program is different from other true-crime series because the murders are portrayed from the omniscient point-of-view of the v ...

''.

Early life

Langford was born on May 18, 1966, in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

Marion County, Kentucky Marion County is a county in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the total population was 19,581. Its county seat is Lebanon. The county was founded in 1834 and named for Francis Marion, the American Revolutionary War hero know ...

. Not much is known about his early life other than he was a drifter who resided in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...

. According to the

North Carolina Department of Public Safety The North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) is an umbrella agency that carries out many of the state's law enforcement, emergency response and homeland security functions. The department was created in 1977 as the Department of Crime Co ...

, Langford was convicted of forgery and tampering with a motor vehicle in the summer of 1987. As both charges were misdemeanors he received no jail time.

Murders

Terry Langford was convicted of murdering a couple, Ned and Celene Blackwood, in

, on July 5, 1988. He was sentenced to death for this crime on January 26, 1989. While 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 ...

Montana State Prison The Montana State Prison is a men's correctional facility of the Montana Department of Corrections in unincorporated Powell County, Montana, about west of Deer Lodge. The current facility was constructed between 1974 and 1979 in response to the ...

, Langford killed a fellow inmate during a riot on September 22, 1991, in which five inmates were killed. He was convicted of deliberate homicide and given a life term without parole. Langford was acquitted of four other counts of deliberate homcide.

Execution

After waiving his appeals, Langford was executed on February 24, 1998, at

. He declined to make a final statement. At 31 years old, he was the youngest inmate put to death in Montana since the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

was reinstated in 1976. Langford remains the second of only three people to be executed in Montana since the resumption of the death penalty. The others were Duncan Peder McKenzie Jr. in 1995 and

David Thomas Dawson David Thomas Dawson (October 20, 1957 – August 11, 2006) was an American convicted murderer who was executed at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Montana. Dawson was executed for the April 1986 murders of the Rodstein family in Billings, Monta ...

in 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Langford, Terry 1966 births 1998 deaths 20th-century executions by Montana 20th-century executions of American people American people executed for murder Executed people from Kentucky People convicted of murder by Montana People executed by Montana by lethal injection People from Lebanon, Kentucky Suspected serial killers Volunteer execution

Early life

Murders

Execution

See also

References