A witness confirmed that Basnett approached the car and spoke with Swindler. Swindler shut the hood and got into the car. Exiting the store after receiving directions to Kansas, Swindler inspected the car’s engine while Basnett proceeded to his patrol car, radioed for backup, and pulled his car behind the stolen vehicle. Basnett recognized the stolen vehicle and Swindler from a national bulletin issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) earlier that day. Stopping at the Road Runner convenience store and service station on Kelley Highway, just off Interstate 540, Swindler entered the store where Patrolman Basnett was visiting with the owner. On September 24, 1976, he took a wrong exit that brought him to Fort Smith. Unable to read road signs, Swindler was lost much of the time and had to ask for directions often. He began a crime spree that included abductions an attempted abduction the shooting and killing of three people the tying up of an elderly couple whom he robbed of guns, ammunition, and a vehicle and a service station robbery that left the attendant paralyzed after being shot.Īggrieved about perceived mistreatment at Leavenworth, Swindler planned to return to Kansas, kill as many citizens as he could, and then shoot as many police officers as possible. He returned to his home state of South Carolina, where a former cellmate provided him a gun. Having served in multiple penal institutions since the age of fifteen, Swindler was released from the United States Prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, on September 17, 1976. Unique circumstances caused him to be the last Arkansas inmate to be executed in the electric chair. He was the first Arkansas death row inmate executed following reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977 (the last execution before Swindler had been in 1964). John Edward Swindler was a habitual and violent criminal who was executed on June 18, 1990, for the 1976 murder of on-duty Fort Smith (Sebastian County) patrolman Randy Basnett.
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