Clarence Ray Allen
Clarence Ray Allen was an American gang leader and proxy murderer who was executed in 2006 at the age of 76 by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison for the murders of three people. Allen was the second-oldest inmate at the time to be executed in the United States since 1976.
Throughout the 1970s, Allen organized several armed robberies across California. In 1978, he was convicted for ordering the 1974 murder of his son's teenage girlfriend Mary Sue Kitts for informing others of her involvement in Allen's gang. In 1980, while already serving a life sentence for Kitts' murder, Allen organised the killing of Bryon Schletewitz, as part of a greater murder scheme to eliminate witnesses in the murder. The resulting contract killing became known as the Fran's Market murders, in which Schletewitz and two uninvolved employees were murdered by a recently released convict who was promised payment by Allen.
Allen was found guilty of the three murders in 1982 and sentenced to death. The execution date was pushed back three times for two decades. When a final date was decided in 2005, Allen's lawyers declared that "he presents absolutely no danger at this point, as incapacitated as he is. There's no legitimate state purpose served by executing him. It would be gratuitous punishment." They argued that execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment due to Allen's advanced age and health conditions, and requested that he be granted clemency by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, which was refused. As of 2025, Allen is the most recent person to be executed in California.
Early life
Clarence Ray Allen, who was known by his middle name, was born in 1930 in Blair in southwest Oklahoma, as the youngest of five children. Since 1988, Allen had claimed Native American heritage, asserting that his mother was part Choctaw and his father part Cherokee; his race was listed as White with correctional authorities and he was not enrolled with the Choctaw Nation.Allen's family was poor and he began working as a cotton picker at age 11 or 12. In the early 1940s, the family relocated to south Texas, where Allen dropped out of school in the eighth grade, before moving to Fresno, California. At 17, he married Helen Sevier, whom he had met a year earlier while working in the cotton fields of San Joaquin Valley. Around the same time, Allen stole items from the cars of fellow cotton pickers.
Allen and his wife briefly lived in a rented house, described as a "little chicken coop", near Pixley, California. By the mid-1950s, Allen had fathered to two sons, became a born-again Christian deacon, and gained employment at a warehouse for Sunland Olive Company.
Criminal career
In 1962, Allen, by then a warehouse manager, was convicted alongside several subordinates for criminal conspiracy. According to Sunland officials, Allen had formed a criminal ring that stole up to 3,000 cases of olives, which they sold to vegetables stands in the Central Valley area. He served a one-year sentence at the San Joaquin County Honor Farm and after his release, Allen divorced his wife, retaining custody of their two children. Allen subsequently worked as a security guard for a steel plant in Fresno County.In 1968, Allen founded his own private security company, which saw great success with ranchers amid disputes with the United Farm Workers union. The company grew to 60 employees and had two planes at its disposal. Allen remarried and purchased his own ranch in Sanger, where he raised Thoroughbred and Arabian horses.
Between June 1974 and March 1977, Allen used his position to gather information on clients to commit at least ten armed robberies and burglaries on business and private homes around Central Valley. The criminal group, consisting of some of his security employees, his sons, his extramarital girlfriend, some acquaintances and their adult children, was dubbed the Ray Allen Gang or just Allen Gang, by Allen himself. Allen later claimed connections to the mafia, regularly boasting about personally killing two people in Nevada, carrying a newspaper clipping of the murders around as a scare tactic.
Fran's Market burglary and murder of Mary Sue Kitts
In June 1974, Allen plotted the burglary of Fran's Market, a supermarket in Sanger owned by Ray and Fran Schletewitz, whom Allen had known for years. The plot involved his youngest son, Roger Allen, as well as Ed Savala, Carl Mayfield, and Charles Jones. Mayfield and Jones worked for Allen in his security guard business as well as part of a burglary enterprise allegedly operated by Allen.Allen arranged for someone to steal a set of door and alarm keys from the market owner's son, Bryon Schletewitz, while Schletewitz was swimming in Allen's pool. Allen then arranged a date between Schletewitz and Mary Sue Kitts for the evening, during which time the burglary took place. The burglary netted $500 in cash and $10,000 in money orders from the store's safe.
Following the commission of the burglary, Kitts told Bryon Schletewitz that Allen had committed the crime, which she knew as she had helped Allen cash the stolen money orders at various malls in southern California using false identification.
Schletewitz confronted Roger Allen and informed him that he had been told of the crime by Kitts. Roger Allen told his father, Ray, who said that Schletewitz and Kitts would have to be "dealt with." He enlisted three employees of his security firm, Charles Jones, Carl Mayfield and Eugene "Lee" Furrow. According to an opinion filed on May 6, 2004, in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:
Although he ultimately did not harm Bryon Schletewitz or his parents and continued to feign innocence, Allen claimed that someone was planning to burn down their house, later paying Eugene "Lee" Furrow $50 to fire several gunshots outside their home.
In August 1974, Allen ordered Lee Furrow to murder Kitts. He also had Charles Jones, Carl Mayfield and Shirley Doeckel aid in the preparation of the murder. Allen had the others vote whether they agreed with his plan, although those involved later claimed that they only voiced support for fear of being killed by Allen, who had previously threatened to "kill snitches" and that others would fulfill such orders even if he were imprisoned. After an unsuccessful attempt to poison her with cyanide capsules, supplied by Furrow and Mayfield, at a staged party at Doeckel's home, Allen called Furrow to learn if he had killed Kitts. Furrow told Allen he was in the process of strangling her and Allen replied, "do it." After killing Kitts, Furrow weighed down her body with stones from Allen's backyard before dumping it into the Friant-Kern Canal. The body has never been found. Afterwards, Allen ordered his daughter-in-law Kathy to call the Schletewitz family, impersonate Mary Sue Kitts, and claim to be pregnant with Bryon's child to discourage them from calling police about Kitts' disappearance.
According to court records, Allen said he would not hesitate to kill any other "snitches". In 1977, he told two new members, Allen Robinson and Benjamin Meyer, that he had previously "had a broad helping them who got mouthy so they had to waste her" and that "she sleeps with the fishes." He then gave Meyer a warning.
"If you bring anybody in my house that snitches on me or my family, I'll waste them. There's no rock, bush, nothing, he could hide behind..."
Other robberies and arrest
Allen's gang committed another eight robberies, beginning only days after Kitts' murder. The gang's first armed robbery took place on August 12, 1974, when $18,000 worth of jewelry were stolen from a safe at the Safina Jewelry Store. On September 4, 1974, the Allen Gang held up Don's Hillside Inn in Porterville, stealing $3,600 from the hotel earnings and several hundred dollars worth in cash and credit cards from patrons. On February 12, 1975, elderly couple William and Ruth Cross were robbed at gunpoint in their Fresno home and forced to hand over a coin collection worth $100,000.Subsequent robberies were less successful. On June 18, 1975, Allen was arrested after an attempted armed robbery at Wickes Forest Products in Fresno. Charges against Allen were dropped after the chief prosecution witness refused to testify following death threats by Allen against the family of the witness. During the October 21, 1976 robbery of Skagg's Drug Store in Bakersfield, a member of the Allen Gang, Raoul Lopez, accidentally shot himself and during a later robbery at a Lucky's store in Sacramento on November 20, Lopez shot clerk Lee McBride, who suffered permanent nerve damage. The Allen Gang stole $16,000 from a K-Mart in Tulare on February 10, 1977, and during the last proven robbery on a K-Mart in Visalia on March 16, Larry Green shot employee John Atteberry in the chest, leaving him permanently disabled.
After the failed Visalia robbery, Allen and his associates, including Lee Furrow, were arrested. In summer 1977, Allen, along with accomplices Roger Allen and Alan Robinson, was first convicted of robbery, attempted robbery, and assault with a deadly weapon, the latter after an attempted murder charge was downgraded as intent to kill could not be proven. That same year, Furrow confessed to the murder of Mary Kitts, implicating Allen. On March 16, 1978, Allen was convicted of first degree murder, burglary, and conspiracy to commit murder and received a life sentence. Furrow, who said Allen threatened to kill him as well if he didn't murder Mary, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second degree murder. As of 2022, the case remains the only murder conviction without a body in Fresno County history.
Fran’s Market murders
Allen conspired with fellow inmate Billy Ray Hamilton while in Folsom Prison to murder the eight witnesses who had testified against him: Lee Furrow, Barbara Carrasco, Benjamin Meyer, Charles Jones, Carl Mayfield, Shirley Doeckel, and Ray and Bryon Schletewitz. Allen told Hamilton of Schletewitz's workplace as the first target and that in return for his service, Allen offered Hamilton $25,000 as well as "guns and transportation", saying he was also free to take money from the store, both to stage the killing as a robbery and as a form of payment to Hamilton. Allen was motivated both by a desire to "retaliate" against the witnesses for their role in his conviction and to ensure that there would be no testimony from them should his appeals to retrial be successful. About a month after the agreement, Hamilton was paroled from Folsom Prison on July 28, or August 29, 1980.Hamilton received money to travel to Fresno by Allen's eldest son Kenneth, who had received instructions from his father via mail. At Kenneth's home, Hamilton was told to kill Bryon and Ray Schletewitz, but that another target, Ray Allen's ex-girlfriend Shirley Doeckel, was off-limits for now as they needed her to get the location of the remaining witnesses. Hamilton told his girlfriend, Connie Barbo, of the contract killing job. Barbo would boast to friends in the days leading up to the murders that she had the opportunity to receive "a few thousands" in cash and "a few hundred" in "crank" for "snuffing out a life". Hamilton and Barbo originally planned to commit the murders of the Schletewitzes on September 4, when they received their firearms, a sawed-off shotgun and a.32 revolver, from Kenneth, but Barbo convinced her boyfriend to wait for the next day as she did not want to go through with the killings yet after seeing a 15-year-old Mexican boy inside the store that evening. Before heading off to Fran's Market for a second and final time, Hamilton received additional ammunition for both guns.
On September 5, 1980, at about 8 p.m., Hamilton, armed with the shotgun, and Barbo, armed with the revolver, went to Fran's Market. 27-year-old Bryon Schletewitz was working inside but his father Ray was not. As it was nearly closing time, no patrons were inside and Schletewitz was only accompanied by three teenage employees. After Hamilton bought meat from the counter, he waited until the front entrance was locked. While two employees, Joe Rios and 18-year-old Douglas White, were in the stockroom, Hamilton and Barbo pulled out their weapons and forced the remaining employees, Schletewitz and 17-year-old Josephine Rocha, into the stockroom as well and ordered them all to lie on the ground. While Barbo kept watch in the stockroom, Hamilton first took White to the freezer, claiming he "knew" about a hidden safe there, but was informed by White that there wasn't one. White was returned and Hamilton called out for "Briant", with Bryon Schletewitz identifying himself, handing over his keys, and promising Hamilton all the store's earnings.
Hamilton took Schletewitz to the freezer and shot him in the forehead. Hamilton returned to the other hostages and again demanded that White show him the safe. When White reiterated that there was no safe, Hamilton killed White with a shotgun blast to the chest and neck at point-blank range before fatally shooting Rocha when she began crying. Rios had managed to flee into the restroom, but he was found and shot twice by Hamilton. Rios survived because he was able to shield his face with his elbow, but he was believed dead by both Hamilton and Barbo, who only checked the other victims for life signs.
Hamilton and Barbo fled through the front door, but were spotted by an armed next-door neighbor, Jack Abbott, who had overheard the gunfire. Hamilton and Abbott exchanged fire while Barbo fled back into the store's bathroom. Abbott was wounded, but managed to shoot Hamilton in the foot as he ran for his car. While Hamilton managed to flee, Barbo was arrested at the scene.
Kenneth Allen and Hamilton met a final time to switch vehicles, after which Hamilton fled to Modesto to live with Gary Brady, a fellow recently released convict. Hamilton told Brady how he had "done robbery" and "killed three people for Ray", whom he also called "the old man". While living with Brady and his wife, Hamilton wrote to Ray Allen for payment, listing the Brady address in the letter. Five days after the events at Fran's Market, Hamilton was arrested while attempting to rob a liquor store across the street from the Brady apartment. On his person was found a "hit list" with the names and addresses of the witnesses who testified against Allen at his trial for Kitts' murder.