State spent nearly $98,000 to execute Cal Coburn Brown

YAKIMA — The state Department of Corrections spent $97,814 to execute convicted murderer Cal Coburn Brown, the agency said Monday.

Brown died by lethal injection Sept. 10 for the 1991 murder of a Seattle-area woman. He was the first Washington inmate executed since 2001, after spending nearly 17 years on death row.

The Corrections Department said $75,863 of the $97,814 total went toward employee wages related to the execution. The department sent officials from its headquarters in Olympia to the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla to oversee the execution, and the prison beefed up security that day.

Another $5,745 was used for travel expenses and $16,206 went to goods and services, including the cost of the drug used to execute Brown and security fencing for protesters and the media, among other items.

Originally from San Jose, Calif., Brown had a history of violent crime. He was convicted of assaults in California and Oregon, serving seven years in an Oregon prison, and was released on parole just two months before kidnapping 21-year-old Holly Washa at knifepoint, then raping and killing her.

Since 1904, 78 men have been put to death in Washington. Eight men are on death row at the state penitentiary.

The annual cost to house an inmate at the penitentiary has more than doubled since 1997, from $21,316 to $43,352 this year, according to the Corrections Department.