Court Sets October Execution Date for Richard Djerf
The Arizona Supreme Court has scheduled the execution of Richard Kenneth Djerf, a man convicted of killing four members of a Phoenix family in 1993, for October 17. The decision marks what will be Arizona’s second use of the death penalty in 2025.
Djerf, 55, pleaded guilty to the murders of Albert Luna Sr., his wife Patricia, their 18-year-old daughter Rochelle, and 5-year-old son Damien. The brutal killings, carried out in the Luna family’s home on September 14, 1993, were described by prosecutors as an act of revenge.
According to court records, Djerf blamed a member of the Luna family for an earlier burglary at his apartment involving stolen electronics. Obsessed with retaliation, he devised a plan months later to enter the family’s home under the guise of delivering flowers.
Once inside, authorities said, Djerf carried out a series of horrific acts. He sexually assaulted Rochelle before slashing her throat, beat and stabbed Albert Luna Sr. with an aluminum baseball bat before shooting him, and taped Patricia and Damien to kitchen chairs before fatally shooting them.
The gruesome nature of the crime stunned the community. Djerf eventually acknowledged his actions, and a friend later told investigators that Djerf had confessed details of the murders to him. In 1996, he was sentenced to death.
This week, Arizona’s high court granted prosecutors’ request for a warrant of execution. At the same time, the court rejected a plea from Djerf’s lawyers to delay the warrant while they sought to recover lost case documents. His attorneys argued that a March cyberattack on the federal public defender’s office had compromised their ability to pursue clemency proceedings.
Authorities plan to use a lethal injection of pentobarbital in Djerf’s execution. The state has carried out executions using pentobarbital since resuming capital punishment in 2022 following an eight-year hiatus. That pause stemmed from a botched 2014 execution in which inmate Joseph Wood was injected with 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours, during which he gasped and snorted hundreds of times before dying.
Arizona has 108 inmates currently on death row. The most recent execution took place in March 2025, when Aaron Brian Gunches was put to death for the 2002 killing of Ted Price. The state also executed three men in 2022 after re-establishing its lethal injection protocols.
For the Luna family, the long-awaited date brings closure to a case that has lingered for over three decades. For Arizona, it underscores the continued debate over the death penalty — a practice that remains controversial nationwide amid questions about morality, justice, and the reliability of lethal injection.
Richard Djerf is scheduled to die on October 17, nearly 32 years after the murders that led to his death sentence.
