William Henry Hance

William Henry Hance (November 10, 1951 – March 31, 1994) was an American serial killer and U.S. Army soldier who murdered three women near Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, between 1977 and 1978. He was known to have sent taunting letters to police and the media attempting to blame the crimes on a group of white men known as the Forces of Evil.

Hance was convicted of murdering three women in Georgia and sentenced to death. A fourth murder, which occurred in Indiana, he was never tried for, but was deemed the prime suspect. He spent fifteen years on death row in Georgia before his execution in the electric chair in 1994.

Early life Hance was born on November 10, 1951, in Lexington, Virginia, the first of two children born to David and Mary Hance. His father worked as a custodian while his mother used a wheelchair during his adolescence, and died in 1970.

Hance was a quiet yet social child who hung around smart children, even though he was purported to have an IQ of around 79points.

The disparate groups of victims were linked by a letter to the local police chief written on United States Army stationery. The handwritten note purported to be from a gang of seven white men who were holding a black woman hostage and would kill her if the Stocking Strangler were not apprehended. The Stocking Strangler was believed to be a black man, and this had been widely reported at the time. Hance was not charged with Hickman's murder in the civilian system, but was charged, tried, and convicted by a court martial for her death.

Eventually, Hance was also identified as the killer of a young black woman at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana. Hance was also tried and convicted in a court martial, but not a civilian court, for the murder of Karen Hickman. During his court martial for the murder of Irene Thirkield, Hance received a life sentence which was reversed when jurors decided he lacked the mental capacity for premeditation. For the deaths of both Hickman and Thirkield, Hance's final court martial sentence was life at hard labor. The convictions were set aside in 1980 and he was not retried by the military court system.

Civilian courts Hance v. State, 245 Ga. 856, 268 S.E.2d 339, cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1067, 101 S.Ct. 796, 66 L.Ed.2d 611 (1980). In this case, Hance's conviction and sentence of death in the Jackson murder were affirmed by the Georgia Supreme Court. The Thirkield murder is also included in the Court's summation of the facts. Hance v. Zant, 456 U.S. 965, 102 S.Ct. 2046, 72 L.Ed.2d 491 (1982). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in Hance's habeas corpus appeal in the Jackson murder. William Henry Hance, Petitioner, v. Walter D. Zant, Warden, Georgia Diagnostic And Classification Center, Respondent United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. 696 F.2d 940, cert. denied, 463 U.S. 1210, 103 S.Ct. 3544, 77 L.Ed.2d 1393 (1983). After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his first habeas petition in the Jackson case in 1982, the federal appellate court for the 11th Circuit, which includes Georgia, affirmed Hance's conviction but ordered a retrial of the sentencing stage because the prosecutor's closing argument rendered the sentencing proceeding fundamentally unfair, and because two jurors were improperly excluded in violation of Witherspoon v. Illinois, a case about unjust challenges to jury members regarding their death penalty beliefs. The federal appellate court therefore ordered the state court system to provide a new, more fair, sentencing phase trial for the murder of Jackson. Hance v. State, 254 Ga. 575, 332 S.E.2d 287, cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1038, 106 S.Ct. 606, 88 L.Ed.2d 584 (1985). After a second sentencing trial resulted in another death sentence for the murder of Jackson, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence. Hance filed another petition for habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Butts County, which is a Georgia state trial court. That court denied his petition after holding an evidentiary hearing. Hance v. Kemp, 258 Ga. 649, 373 S.E.2d 184 (1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1012, 109 S.Ct. 1658, 104 L.Ed.2d 172 (1989) The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the denial of habeas corpus by the Superior Court of Butts County, and in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal of the 1988 Georgia Supreme Court ruling. After the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the denial of habeas corpus by the Superior Court of Butts County in 1988, Hance then filed a new petition for habeas corpus in the federal District Court for the Middle District of Georgia; that court denied the petition without holding an evidentiary hearing. Hance then appealed to the federal appellate court for the 11th Circuit, which decided the case in January 1993. William Henry Hance, Petitioner-appellant, v. Walter Zant, Warden, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Center, Respondent-appellee United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. 981 F.2d 1180 (January 6, 1993). Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied March 11, 1993. In a relatively brief order, a panel of the federal appellate court in the 11th Circuit denied Hance's habeas appeal in the Jackson murder, and denied him the opportunity to present his case to the full appellate bench (instead of the panel).

Execution Hance was condemned to death in civilian court for the murder of Gail Jackson and sentenced to life imprisonment in military court for the murder of Irene Thirkield in December 1978. In August 1986, his military life sentence for the murder of Thirkield was overturned, but not his civilian death sentence for the murder of Jackson.

Hance had an IQ of 79points, which classifies him as "borderline intellectual functioning" on modern medical scales of mental retardation.

Controversy Other issues besides Hance's mental and psychiatric status had created controversy prior to the day of his electrocution, and one—the question of racial bias in the state sentencing jury—veritably exploded afterwards. The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles had not even proofread its order denying his stay of execution, and conflated it with another document about some other prisoner. The Georgia Supreme Court denied his appeal by only one vote, 4–3.

There was only one black juror, a 26-year-old woman named Gayle Lewis Daniels. According to Lemay, Daniels was subjected to racial invective in the jury room.

At a law school conference the following year, attorney Ronald J. Tabak stated at some length his opinion that Hance's race contributed to the sentence.

In popular culture Hance was portrayed by Corey Allen in the second season of the Netflix series, Mindhunter.