RE: The Crime Of Wyatt Matthews, By Joseph A. Rehyansky,  National Review, June 29, 1984

From: Joe Rehyansky [Email him]

Thank you for keeping my article on Wyatt Matthews in circulation.  I have wondered whatever became of him but can find no current references to him anywhere.  Any suggestions?

Joseph A. Rehyansky is retired from the United States Army and the Chattanooga, Tennessee, District Attorney’ Office. He is a former contributor to National Review whose writings have also appeared in Human Events Online, The American Spectator, and other publications.

James Fulford writes: First, I’d like to thank Mr. Rehyansky for writing the article in the first place. It was published in the pre-purge National Review, but it wasn’t on the web, so we reproduced it when I wrote my own article about the similar case of Troy Davis. [Troy Davis, Lawrence Brewer, Wyatt Matthews And The Disparate Death Penalty, September 24, 2011]

I tried at the time to find out what happened to Wyatt Matthews, a black PFC who raped a white woman, the wife of a warrant officer, and then killed her by  stabbing her 53 times with nine-inch scissors. He was sentenced to death, but the courts found some technical reason for not allowing him to be executed, so he should still be in prison somewhere. However, so far, internet searches of Federal prison locator services have failed to find him.