Donald Grant was sentenced to death by the State of Oklahoma for a robbery murder. According to court documents Donald Grant would enter a hotel and in the process of robbing it would shoot and kill two employees. Donald Grant would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Oklahoma Death Row Inmate List
Donald Grant 2021 Information
Gender: Male
Race: Black
Height: 5 ft 8 in
Weight: 169 lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
OK DOC#: 522436
Birth Date: 12/17/1975
Current Facility: OKLAHOMA STATE PENITENTIARY, MCALE
Reception Date: 1/23/2006
Donald Grant More News
On July 18, 2001, Appellant entered a LaQuinta Inn in Del City, ostensibly to fill out an employment application. In reality, Appellant had planned to rob the hotel in order to obtain money to post bond for a girlfriend, Shlonda Gatewood (who was in the Oklahoma County Jail at the time), and was prepared to kill any witnesses to the crime. Appellant may have been motivated to strike this particular business because another girlfriend of his, Cheryl Tubbs, had been fired from employment there a few months before; in any event, Appellant was familiar with the layout of the property and the location of video surveillance equipment.
¶ 3 When Appellant saw the hotel manager, Brenda McElyea, he approached her with a pistol in his hand and ordered her to walk to a storage room, where he fatally shot her once in the head, and slashed her neck and back with a box knife to make sure the knife was sharp enough to use on his next victim. Appellant then left the storage room and approached another employee, Suzette Smith, in the break room. Appellant ordered Smith at gunpoint to give him the money from the hotel register, which she did. Appellant then ordered Smith to walk back to the manager’s office, where he shot her three times in the face. Smith continued to struggle to escape, so Appellant brutally beat her and cut her numerous times with his knife. He hit Smith in the head with his pistol, attempted to break her neck, and threw a computer monitor on her head in an effort to stop her struggling. Eventually, Smith succumbed to her wounds and died in the office. Before leaving the office, Appellant took personal property from Smith’s purse.
¶ 4 Appellant then left the hotel and walked to a nearby discount store, where he abandoned his pistol and some traveler’s checks he had taken in the robbery.3 He then called a cab to take him to the home of Cheryl Tubbs. Later that day, Appellant used money from the robbery to pay Shlonda Gatewood’s bond, which was about $200. Appellant and Gatewood then used a stolen car to drive from Oklahoma City to New York City, where Appellant had family. About a month after the murders, Appellant was arrested in New York and returned to Oklahoma.4
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ok-court-of-criminal-appeals/1118359.html
Donald Grant Execution – January 27, 2022
An Oklahoma death row inmate who had requested execution by firing squad was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, according to the state Department of Corrections.The execution of Donald Grant “was carried out with zero complications” at 10:16 a.m., state Attorney General John O’Connor said in a statement.In October 2021 the state resumed executions by lethal injection, after a lengthy hiatus following a botched execution in 2014.
Grant and another death row inmate, Gilbert Postelle, had asked a federal judge to intervene and allow their executions by firing squad rather than lethal injection. The judge denied the preliminary injunction.
Grant’s lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court for a stay, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied the application.
Grant was sentenced to death for the 2001 murders of Brenda McElyea and Felecia Suzette Smith, according to court documents filed to the Supreme Court by the Oklahoma attorney general.”Justice is now served for Brenda McElyea, Felecia Suzette Smith, and the people of Oklahoma,” the attorney general said in a statement.Postelle is scheduled to be executed on February 17.In their initial petition to the court, lawyers for the two inmates had sought an injunction to stop Oklahoma from using lethal injection to administer the death penalty. Attorneys for the inmates had asked for the executions to be delayed pending a late February trial on the constitutionality of the lethal injection protocol.
Testimony submitted by the plaintiffs in court filings from a “board-certified anesthesiologist and a board-certified pain medicine specialist” alleged that execution by firing squad — not Oklahoma’s process of lethal injection — is appropriate because “firing squad will reliably cause a death that will be quick and virtually painless.”On November 30, 2021, Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 against recommending clemency for Grant. CNN affiliate KOCO reported that during the hearing, Grant’s lawyers argued that although their client admitted to a 2001 double murder, he shouldn’t be executed because he “is severely mentally ill.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/27/us/oklahoma-donald-grant-execution/index.html