The Execution of Charles Campbell: A System’s Fatal Failure and a Triple Murder in Washington State

It is past midnight when the guards come for him. On May 27, 1994, inside the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, the corridor leading to the gallows is quiet. It is the kind of heavy silence found only in places built for actions that cannot be undone.

Charles Rodman Campbell had spent 12 years on death row, telling anyone who would listen that this moment would never come. For 12 years, he filed legal motions and appeals, arguing that the state had no right to take his life, that the method was cruel, and that the Constitution protected him. But on this night, his arguments have finally run out.

When the guards open his cell door, Campbell is on the floor. He isn’t sick; he is refusing to cooperate, curled on his side, rigid—as if making himself small enough could somehow make time stop. It doesn’t. Guards pepper-spray and restrain him. When it is time to walk to the gallows, Campbell’s legs stop working. Whether he cannot stand or simply will not, nobody can say for certain. The 223-pound man who once confidently walked into a house with a knife and looked three women in the eyes cannot find the strength to take thirty steps on his own.

Strapped to a board and carried by four guards into the execution chamber, the noose is lifted, and a black hood is placed over his head. Even then, he twists and shifts, trying to delay by mere seconds what he had been delaying for 12 years. The trapdoor drops at exactly 12:08 a.m. Six minutes later, he is gone.

To understand the full weight of what happened in that chamber, you must understand why a woman flew across the country to witness it, and why an elderly man sat with folded hands, staring straight ahead until the execution was over. You need to go back to the beginning. You need to know her name: Renee.

A Life Built in Clearview

Renee grew up on a farm in rural North Dakota. She was bright, sharp, and naturally drew people toward her. In 1970, she traveled to Washington state to visit her sister and immediately fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. She decided to plant her roots there.

She found a job at a Seattle beauty salon, where she met Jack Wicklund. They married and, in 1973, settled in Clearview—a quiet community in Snohomish County where houses sat back from the roads and neighbors truly knew one another. That same year, Renee gave birth to a daughter, Shanna.

Across the street lived Barbara and Don Hendrickson. Barbara became like family to Renee, constantly coming over with food, warmth, and quiet support while Jack was away for work. By late 1974, 23-year-old Renee had built the life she had always wanted. She had no idea that a man on the other side of the county had already decided to destroy it.

The First Attack

Charles Rodman Campbell was born in Hawaii in 1954 and later moved to Snohomish County. He grew up in a volatile, abusive household marked by heavy drinking. He arrived in the world angry and stayed that way. By age 10, he was drinking; by 13, he was using heroin. At 17, he tried to hire a friend to kill his own father. His first marriage ended after he terrorized his wife, even throwing knives near his infant daughter’s crib.

On the unseasonably warm afternoon of December 11, 1974, Campbell—then 20, unemployed, and filled with rage—walked up Renee Wicklund’s driveway. Renee, who was cleaning windows while her one-year-old daughter sat on the grass, saw him approaching. When he sprinted toward her, she grabbed Shanna and ran for the door. She couldn’t lock it in time.

Campbell forced his way inside with a knife. After a brutal assault, he calmly thanked her and walked out the front door. Renee ran across the street to Barbara Hendrickson, who immediately locked her house and armed herself before calling the police.

Thanks to Renee’s detailed description, police quickly identified Campbell. He was arrested over a year later. Renee and Barbara both bravely took the stand, pointing him out in a courtroom. In 1976, Campbell was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Renee finally breathed a sigh of relief, unaware that by testifying, she had given him a reason to come back.

A Catastrophic System Failure

Inside the Washington State Reformatory, Campbell did not change. He assaulted inmates, brewed alcohol, and ran a system of threats. In 1979, a prison psychologist wrote a damning report, stating Campbell had “declared war on society,” was conscienceless, and was imminently dangerous.

Yet, in June 1981—after serving only 5 years of his 40-year sentence—the parole board cleared Campbell for lower custody. How? The reformatory had simply stopped forwarding disciplinary records to the parole board. Hundreds of violent infractions were never seen.

Campbell was moved to a work-release facility in Everett, just 10 miles from Renee’s home. The county sheriff wasn’t notified. The state never called Renee. Legally, Campbell had requested his court transcripts, which contained Renee’s home address. He spent months driving to Clearview, parking in the tree line, and watching her house in the dark. Fresh footprints in the snow outside Renee’s windows were dismissed as an anomaly, but the predator was already circling.

The April 1982 Murders

On April 14, 1982, eight years after the initial assault, Campbell decided it was time to settle his score. Armed with a butcher knife, he drove to Clearview and parked in the trees.

Renee was home sick with strep throat. At 4:20 p.m., eight-year-old Shanna arrived home from school. Shortly after, Barbara Hendrickson walked across the street to help watch Shanna and make Jell-O while Renee rested.

What happened next was a deliberate, targeted act of revenge. Campbell broke in and slaughtered all three of them. Renee and Shanna were found in the bedroom. Barbara had almost made it to the back door before he caught her. Campbell then ripped the jewelry from their bodies, stepped over them, and left.

At 6:30 p.m., a worried Don Hendrickson walked across the street to check on his wife. He found the sliding glass door ajar. Inside, he discovered the horrific scene. His wife of 34 years was dead on the hallway floor.

The evidence against Campbell was overwhelming: a bloody fingerprint on a kitchen glass, a neighbor girl who saw him moving through the bushes with a knife, and Renee’s jewelry, which police divers recovered from the Snohomish River where Campbell had dumped it.

The Trial and the Final Act

In November 1982, Campbell was found guilty of three counts of aggravated first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Washington state allowed inmates to choose between lethal injection and hanging. Campbell arrogantly refused to choose, claiming it violated his religious beliefs to participate in his own execution. The state chose hanging for him.

For the next 12 years, Campbell exploited the legal system to delay his fate, dragging the victims’ families through a torturous decade of appeals. But on that night in May 1994, the delays ended.

Lorraine Ehlers-Iverson, Renee’s sister, flew from North Dakota to witness the execution. Don Hendrickson sat in the chamber, watching the trapdoor drop. Finally, the man who had destroyed their lives could never hurt anyone again.

A Dark Epilogue

Nearly 30 years after Campbell’s execution, the story cracked open one last time. In 2023, Seattle detectives reopened a 1975 cold case. Hallie Ann Seaman, a 25-year-old architecture student, had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death.

Running old DNA evidence through modern databases yielded a perfect match: Charles Rodman Campbell. He had murdered Seaman during the period he was a fugitive, between his 1974 attack on Renee and his 1976 arrest. Nobody knew.

Three innocent women in Clearview died because a prison stopped filing paperwork. They died because a sheriff’s office was never notified. They died because a brave woman who stood up in court was never given a single phone call to warn her that her attacker was free.

The system undeniably failed. But this tragedy leaves behind a much harder question: Is the lesson here about broken bureaucracies, or is the lesson that there are some people for whom rehabilitation is impossible, and the only solution is to separate them from society entirely? Because both of those lessons point to very different solutions, and it is hard to believe both at the same time.