Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia Good Shepherd in Parkersburg in 1891. In 1899, Peterkin found visitations increasingly difficult and asked for a bishop coadjutor, the diocesan convention elected Rev. William Loyall Gravatt of Zion Episcopal Church in Charles Town, West Virginia. Upon Rt.Rev. Peterkin's death in 1916, Rt. Rev. Gravatt moved the diocesan headquarters to Charleston, West Virginia, the state capital, where they are again today, although moved to Wheeling under the episcopate of his successor, Robert E.L. Strider. The diocese is headquartered on Virginia Street in Charleston, a few blocks from the West Virginia State Capitol, in a house known as Diocesan Center. It
Capital punishment in West Virginia George Lecco and Valerie Friend, for the murder of a informant who was supplying federal law enforcement with information about the Leccos cocaine drug ring. Those verdicts and sentences were overturned in 2009 due to juror misconduct, and the retrials ended with life without parole and 35 years for Lecco and Friend respectively. Along with Iowa, West Virginia became the final pre-"Furman" state to abolish capital punishment in 1965. Capital punishment in West Virginia Capital punishment is abolished in the U.S. State of West Virginia since 1965. Prior to secession from the Confederacy and admission to the Union on June