Hastings Arthur Wise (February 16, 1954 – November 4, 2005) was a convicted American mass murderer who was executed in the U.S. state of South Carolina for killing four former co-workers.
Wise shot and killed Charles Griffeth, David Moore, Leonard Filyaw, and Sheryl Wood on September 15, 1997, at the lawn mower parts manufacturing factory of his former employer, R.E.
Hastings Wise was an ex-convict who had served prison time for bank robbery and receipt of stolen goods before obtaining a technical degree and, eventually, finding employment at R.E.
On September 15, the day of the murders, Hastings Wise drove into the Phelon employee parking lot for a scheduled meeting to pick up a box of personal items from Stanley Vance, a security guard.
Wise then entered the main building, first going to the personnel office, where he fatally shot Charles Griffeth, the man who had fired him, twice in the back.
A psychiatrist who assessed Wise said that he drove over 9,000 miles in the two weeks before the murders, in a desire to visit and see sights such as the San Diego Zoo before carrying out the crimes he planned to commit.
The psychiatrist said that the only motive behind the murders was the dismissal from his job, and that Wise felt he had been mistreated all his life due to being African American.
During the sentencing phase of the trial, at Wise's insistence, no character witnesses were called by the defense, although his attorneys had a slate of thirteen people willing to testify.
After hearings to assess his competence to make this decision, the execution date of November 4 was set by the state Supreme Court on September 26, 2005.
Wise was executed by the method he had chosen, lethal injection, at the Broad River Correctional Institution on Friday, November 4, 2005.
He chose to make no final statement but did order a last meal of lobster back, french fries, coleslaw, banana pudding and milk.
According to a roster maintained by the prosecutor of Clark County, Indiana, Wise was the 992nd person to be executed nationwide since the restoration of the death penalty in 1976.
Federal District Court Judge Cameron Currie oversaw the settlement which was reached Monday, November 5, 2001, just one day before the case was scheduled to go to trial.
Phelon and its insurer, Liberty Mutual, brought four suits against Regent on behalf of 32 employees who received workers' compensation payments for injuries and trauma related to the event.