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Billy Bailey

Active

1979–1979

Region

Cheswold, Delaware, USA

State

DE

Kind

Single

Status

Executed

Victims

2

In 1979 Billy Bailey, who had walked away from a prison work-release program, robbed a local liquor store and then shot and killed Gilbert Lambertson, 80, and his wife Clara, 73, in their farmhouse near Cheswold, Delaware. A Delaware State Police helicopter spotted him running across the couple's field, and a trooper caught him after Bailey fired at him and missed. A jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder in 1980 and sentenced him to death. He refused lethal injection and was hanged at the Delaware Correctional Center on January 25, 1996, the state's first hanging in 50 years.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

• Gilbert Lambertson, 80 · 1979

  Lived with Clara in their farmhouse at Lambertson's Corner; two of their sons witnessed the execution in 1996.

• Clara Lambertson, 73 · 1979

  Gilbert's wife; their great-grandson spoke for the family outside the prison in 1996.

Timeline of locations

1. 1979
   Lambertson farmhouse, near Cheswold (Crime scene, approximate area)

   Gilbert and Clara Lambertson were shot in their farmhouse at Lambertson's Corner, north of Dover and about a mile and a half from Cheswold. Bailey had robbed a liquor store earlier the same day.

2. 1979
   Arrest in the Lambertsons' field (Arrest, approximate area)

   State Police aviation officers spotted Bailey running across the Lambertsons' field. A trooper jumped from the helicopter and chased him; Bailey fired one shot, missed, and was tackled and arrested.

3. January 25, 1996
   Delaware Correctional Center (now James T. Vaughn Correctional Center), Smyrna (Prison, approximate area)

   Bailey was hanged on an outdoor wooden gallows on the prison grounds shortly after midnight on January 25, 1996, as two of the Lambertsons' sons watched. The gallows were torn down in 2003.

Sources

• Billy Bailey (Wikipedia)
• Murderer hanged in Delaware (UPI, Jan 25, 1996)
• Delaware State Police Museum to showcase new exhibit (Delaware State Police, June 2, 2021)
• Murderer executed by hanging in gallows (AP via Spokesman-Review, Jan 25, 1996)
• Delaware hangs couple's killer (AP via Deseret News, Jan 25, 1996)
• Delaware gallows: the end of an era (AP via Lawrence Journal-World, July 9, 2003)

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.