‘THAT’S ALL’

Condemned Killer’s Final Words: I Forgive Parents of Victim for ‘Anger and Hatred Toward Me’

“I pray to God that he forgives you for your anger and hatred toward me. Thanks to my team. I love you all, goodbye,” he said.

In his final words before a lethal injection Monday, a convicted murderer addressed the parents of the man he killed, saying he forgave them for their “anger and hatred toward” him. “Ed and Peggy Schaeffer, I forgive you for your anger and hatred toward me,” Charles Rhines said before his death. “I pray to God that he forgives you for your anger and hatred toward me. Thanks to my team. I love you all, goodbye. Let’s go. That’s all I have to say. Goodbye.” Rhines, 63, was executed Monday evening at the state prison in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for the 1992 murder of 22-year-old Donnivan Schaeffer. The AP reports that Rhines ambushed Schaeffer at a doughnut shop that the two worked at and stabbed him in the stomach. Schaeffer reportedly begged to be taken to a hospital and said he would remain silent about the crime, but Rhines forced Schaeffer into a storeroom, where he tied him up and stabbed him to death. Rhines was executed at 7:39 p.m. after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request to halt the execution.