Noel man's death sentence commuted

WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Biden commuted the sentence of a Noel man on federal death row, according to a White House statement.

Shannon Agofsky, seen below on the right, was on death row for the 2004 stomping death of another inmate at the federal prison in Beaumont, Texas. After Biden commuted his sentence, Agofsky will serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The Missouri man was one of 37 felons that saw their death sentences commuted.

According to the White House statement, Biden believes that America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder. When Biden took office, he imposed a moratorium on federal executions, and his actions today prevent Trump's Administration from carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice.

Agofsky isn't known so much for the inmate's fatal beating but for his part in the notorious kidnapping and slaying of Noel banker Dan Short.

Brothers Joseph and Shannon Agofsky were 23 and 18 at the time they kidnapped Short from his home in Sulphur Springs, Ark., on Oct. 6, 1989. The brothers took Short to the State Bank of Noel and proceeded to steal $71,000.

Short was then gagged and tied up with duct tape, bound to a chair, weighed down with a concrete block and chain hoist, and thrown off Cowskin Bridge into Grand Lake. Officials said Short was still alive when he went into the lake.

The brothers were eventually convicted of many state and federal crimes and received two life sentences, although Oklahoma prosecutors sought the death penalty.

In 2013, Joseph Agofsky died in a federal prison in North Carolina.

Other Oklahoma and Missouri Federal Death Penalty Cases Commuted

• Billie Jerome Allen and Norris G. Holder (Missouri): They were sentenced in 1998 in connection with an armed bank robbery during which Holder killed a bank guard.
• Wesley Paul Coonce, Jr. and Charles Michael Hall (Missouri): Sentenced in 2014 for the killing of a fellow prisoner in the mental health unit of a federal prison.
• Edward Leon Fields, Jr. (Oklahoma): Sentenced in 2005 for the fatal shootings of Charles and Shirley Chick.