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Benjamin Cole Oklahoma Death Row

Benjamin Cole was sentenced to death by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of his nine month old daughter. According to court documents Benjamin Cole would kill his nine month old daughter by breaking her spine. Benjamin Cole was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Benjamin Cole was executed in October 2022

Oklahoma Death Row Inmate List

Benjamin Cole 2022 Information

Gender: Male

Race: White

Height: 5 ft 10 in

Weight: 161 lbs

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Brown

Alias: Benjamin R. Cole

OK DOC#: 489814

Birth Date: 4/8/1965

Current Facility: OKLAHOMA STATE PENITENTIARY, MCALE

Reception Date: 12/27/2004

Benjamin Cole More News

Benjamin Cole’s nine-month-old daughter, Brianna Cole, was murdered on December 20, 2002. According to the State Medical Examiner, Brianna’s spine had been snapped in half, and her aorta had been completely torn through due to non-accidental stretching. The official cause of death was described as a fracture of the spine with aortic laceration.

¶ 3 Benjamin Cole eventually admitted causing the fatal injuries. In a statement he gave to police, Appellant said he’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to get the child, who was lying on her stomach, to stop crying. Appellant eventually grabbed his daughter by the ankles and pushed her legs toward her head until she flipped over. This action broke the child’s back and resulted in fatal injuries.

¶ 4 Evidence was admitted that Benjamin Cole took no remedial action just after this incident happened. He went and played video games, denied anything was wrong with the child when confronted by his wife, and said nothing to rescue or medical personnel about what had happened. (He did, however, attempt CPR when the situation turned grave, before the ambulance arrived.) Only after rescue efforts had failed and an autopsy was performed did the medical personnel learn that Brianna’s spine had been snapped. The autopsy physician testified that the injury required a great amount of force and would not be the result of normal back-bending by a nine month old. The death was eventually ruled a homicide. When told of this fact by the authorities, Appellant asked, “How many years am I looking at?” At this point, Appellant confessed his responsibility for the injuries.

Benjamin Cole Execution

Oklahoma executed Benjamin Cole on Thursday, over his attorneys’ objections that he suffered from schizophrenia and was severely mentally ill, after the US Supreme Court denied his last-minute appeal. Cole, 57, was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of his 9-month-old daughter Brianna.

Cole’s lethal injection began at 10:06 a.m. local time Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, according to Department of Corrections Chief of Operations Justin Farris. Cole was pronounced unconscious at 10:11 and pronounced dead at 10:22 a.m. The execution was “uneventful and without any complications,” Farris told reporters.

The execution was the second of 25 executions scheduled in a flurry of state killings by Oklahoma authorities through 2024. The move comes as a federal judge denied a challenge by prisoners to the state’s lethal injection protocol after a series of so-called botched executions in the state that saw condemned prisoners writhe and cry out in the execution chamber.

Cole’s attorney Tom Hird described his client as a “person with serious mental illness whose schizophrenia and brain damage” led to him murdering his daughter, according to a statement. By the time of his death, Cole had “slipped into a world of delusion and darkness,” Hird said, and was “often unable to interact with my colleagues and me in any meaningful way.”

“Ben lacked a rational understanding of why Oklahoma took his life today,” Hird said following the injection. “As Oklahoma proceeds with its relentless march to execute one mentally ill, traumatized man after another, we should pause to ask whether this is really who we are, and who we want to be.” On January 27, Oklahoma executed Donald Grant, 46, who suffered from schizophrenia and brain damage, according to his attorneys.

On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court denied Cole’s request for a stay of execution in a two-paragraph order. Cole’s attorneys also unsuccessfully asked a state appeals court to compel the prison warden to refer his case for review to the district attorney to initiate a competency hearing. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 to deny clemency to Cole on September 27.

Cole’s petition for clemency argued that his struggles with mental health dated back to his early childhood when he was surrounded by “rampant” drug and alcohol abuse. He began to drink as a young child, encouraged by adults, and according to one of his brothers would get high huffing gasoline by the time he was 10 years old. He suffered years of verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

One psychiatrist diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia in 2009, finding that his mental condition deteriorated as he went untreated for almost 20 years. Cole’s clemency petition said he had lived in dirty and “unkempt” conditions in complete darkness inside his prison cell, which he reportedly almost never left, surrounded by uneaten food that he hoarded.

The petition also cited a physician review of an MRI performed on Cole this year that found a lesion on his brain that “would be highly consistent” with Parkinson’s disease.

However, Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor praised the parole board’s vote to deny Cole clemency, commenting, “Although his attorneys claim Cole is mentally ill to the point of catatonia, the fact is that Cole fully cooperated with a mental evaluation in July of this year” and that an evaluator had found that “Mr. Cole does not currently evidence any substantial, overt signs of mental illness, intellectual impairment, and/or neurocognitive impairment.”

Cole admitted to the brutal murder of his daughter, in which he grabbed her ankles while she was on her stomach and forced them up to her head, breaking her spine. He committed the crime to stop her from crying so he could return to his video game as his daughter bled to death.

He refused a plea deal that would have given him life in prison. He wanted the case to go to trial, because it was “God’s will,” he told his lawyers, and “his story … would allow God to touch hearts and would allow [him] to walk away from it all a free man.” Despite these delusions, he was found competent to stand trial.

After an Oklahoma judge ruled this month that Cole was competent to be executed, Cole’s attorney Hird said, “His own attorneys have not been able to have a meaningful interaction with him for years, and the staff who interact with him in the prison every day confirm that he cannot communicate or take care of his most basic hygiene. He simply does not have a rational understanding of why Oklahoma seeks to execute him.”

In a 1986 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that the execution of the severely mentally ill was unconstitutional. Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote at the time: “It is no less abhorrent today than it has been for centuries to exact in penance the life of one whose mental illness prevents him from comprehending the reasons for the penalty or its implications.”

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that it is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to execute death row inmates with “mental retardation.” However, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the years since this landmark decision, “at least 29—and likely many more—state and federal death-row prisoners have been executed despite strong evidence that they should have been protected by Atkins.”

But while the Supreme Court has ruled that executing the intellectually disabled and those sentenced to death for crimes committed as juveniles is unconstitutional, the high court has not specifically ruled since 1986 that executing those with serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder should be banned.

In a 5-4 decision in Ford v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that a mentally ill person is entitled to Eighth Amendment protection if he or she does not have a rational understanding of the reason for his or her execution.

However, prisoners have repeatedly been tasked with proving their mental incompetence to avoid execution. Under conditions where defendants in capital cases are often represented by overworked, incompetent or disreputable counsel, and prosecutors rely on junk science and/or coerced witnesses to convict, condemned inmates are often unable to prove their mental illness or even obtain a competency hearing.

Benjamin Cole was the 1,552nd death row inmate executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Oklahoma has executed 115 men and three women during this period.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/21/jdet-o21.html

James Coddington Oklahoma Death Row

James Coddington was sentenced to death by the State of Oklahoma for the beating death of an elderly man. According to court documents James Coddington would ask the victim to lend him money to buy drugs and when the 73 year old Albert Troy Hale refused Coddington would beat him to death with a hammer. James Coddington would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. James Coddington was executed on August 25, 2022

Oklahoma Death Row Inmate List

James Coddington 2021 Information

Gender: Male

Race: White

Height: 5 ft 4 in

Weight: 167 lbs

Hair Color: Blond

Eye Color: Blue

OK DOC#: 194169

Birth Date: 3/22/1972

Current Facility: OKLAHOMA STATE PENITENTIARY, MCALE

Reception Date: 8/18/2003

James Coddington More News

In early March of 1997, Appellant, a cocaine addict, suffered a relapse and began using cocaine again. He estimated he spent one thousand dollars ($1000.00) a day to support his habit. Within a short time, he was desperate for money and robbed a convenience store on March 5, 1997 to feed his habit. The robbery did not yield enough money, so Coddington went to his friend Al Hale’s home to borrow fifty dollars ($50.00).

¶ 4 Hale, then 73 years old, worked with Coddington at a Honda Salvage yard. Hale had previously loaned Coddington money and had also contributed towards Coddington’s previous drug treatment. Hale’s friends and family knew he kept a large amount of cash at his home. On March 5, 1997, he had over twenty-four thousand dollars ($24,000.00) stashed in his closet.

¶ 5 Coddington went to Hale’s home on the afternoon of March 5, 1997 to borrow money, because he had been on a cocaine binge for several days and needed money for more cocaine. Coddington watched television with Hale for an hour or two and then smoked crack cocaine in Hale’s bathroom. Hale knew Coddington was using cocaine again. Hale refused to give him money and told him to leave. As he was leaving, Coddington saw a claw hammer in Hale’s kitchen, grabbed it, turned around and hit Hale at least three times with the hammer. Coddington believed Hale was dead, so he took five hundred twenty-five dollars ($525.00) from his pocket and left. Following the attack on Hale, Coddington robbed five more convenience stores to get money for cocaine.

¶ 6 Oklahoma City police detectives arrested Coddington on March 7, 1997, outside of his apartment in south Oklahoma City. Coddington told one officer he had been on a cocaine binge. On the way to the police department, Coddington tried to choke himself by wrapping the seat belt around his neck. He also stated he wanted to die. At the police station, during an interview with a robbery detective and a homicide detective, Coddington confessed to the convenience store robberies and also to the murder of Mr. Hale. He admitted he struck Mr. Hale in the head with a claw hammer and believed Hale was dead when he left. At trial, Coddington admitted he murdered Hale. He testified he did not go to Hale’s house with the intent to do anything except borrow money to buy more cocaine. He said he did not have a weapon with him, did not intend to rob Hale, and did not intend to kill him.

¶ 7 Ron Hale, the victim’s son, discovered Hale after the attack on the evening of March 5, 1997. There was blood and blood spatter everywhere. Hale was lying in his bed, soaked in blood, still breathing but unable to speak. Hale was transported first to Midwest City Hospital and then to Presbyterian Hospital. He died approximately twenty-four hours later. An autopsy showed Hale died from blunt force head trauma. The medical examiner testified he sustained at least three separate blows to the left side of his head, consistent with being hit in the head with a claw hammer. He also testified Hale had defensive wounds.

¶ 8 Coddington admitted that he did not call the police when he left Hale’s house because he did not want to get caught. He also admitted he had prior felony convictions.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ok-court-of-criminal-appeals/1066882.html

James Coddington Execution

Oklahoma has executed 50-year-old James Coddington, the first of 25 death row inmates the state intends to put to death through 2024, the state’s corrections director confirmed Thursday morning.

Coddington, who was sentenced to die for murdering Albert Hale in 1997 amid his struggle with a crack cocaine addiction, was executed after Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday denied his request for clemency. Coddington’s attorneys and advocates had hoped his life would be spared, pointing to his remorse for Hale’s murder, his traumatic childhood and rehabilitation while on Oklahoma’s death row.

The time of death was 10:16 a.m. CT, Department of Corrections Director Scott Crow told reporters.

“Today’s not a good day, it’s not a bad day, it’s just a new day for our family,” Mitchell Hale, the victim’s son, told reporters after attending the execution. “We can finally move on. It’s not going to heal anything, but it closes this chapter.”

Coddington’s execution was the first of more than two dozen state officials plan to carry out between now and December 2024, at a pace of about one man a month. Opponents have been critical of the plan: There are outstanding questions about some inmates’ innocence or mental fitness for execution, their attorneys have said, and critics have pointed to the state’s recent history of botched lethal injections.

Those troubles — dating back to the 2014 execution of Clayton Lockett, who writhed and moaned on the gurney for 43 minutes before suffering a heart attack — had prompted officials to put executions on hold during investigations and reviews of capital punishment in the state. Executions resumed last October, with inmate John Grant, who convulsed and vomited on the gurney, per witnesses.

But there were “absolutely no issues” with Coddington’s execution, Crow said. “The execution today went in accordance with the protocol, with no issues at all.”

Coddington’s chest heaved during the execution, but it was not “dramatic” or to the point where his body lifted from the gurney, said the Associated Press’ Sean Murphy, one of five media witnesses of the execution. The inmate’s breathing appeared to be labored, he said, adding the execution was “pretty par for the course,” given the drugs used.

Coddington in his final words thanked his family, friends and lawyers, according to the media witnesses, and also addressed Stitt, saying, “I don’t blame you, and I forgive you.”

Coddington did not express remorse for Hale’s killing, Mitchell Hale said, saying the omission proved the inmate’s previous expressions of remorse weren’t “genuine.”

“He never apologized, he never mentioned my daddy, never mentioned my family,” the slain man’s son said. “So, there was no true remorse.”

Coddington’s supporters had tried to save his life, including during a hearing this month before Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board, which voted 3-2 to recommend Coddington receive clemency, sending the decision to Stitt.

Coddington had asked for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison, where his advocates — among them the former director of the state’s Department of Corrections and a former Speaker of the state House of Representatives — said he had finally overcome his addiction and could serve as a good influence on other inmates.

“I don’t think it would serve the best interest of the state of Oklahoma to execute Mr. Coddington,” Justin Jones, the former prisons director, told Public Radio Tulsa this month.

State Attorney General John O’Connor and Hale’s family did not support clemency. And while Hale’s son told the parole board at the hearing he had forgiven Coddington, “my forgiveness does not release him from the consequence of his actions,” Mitchell Hale said, according to CNN affiliate KOCO.

Stitt ultimately denied clemency after he had reviewed both sides’ arguments, his office said Wednesday in a statement.

Coddington and his lawyers were “profoundly disheartened,” lawyer Emma Rolls said in a statement. “James is loved by many people,” Rolls told CNN, “and he has touched the hearts of many. He is a good man.”

Amid lingering concerns about inmates’ innocence or mental fitness and prior botched lethal injections, Oklahoma is on track to continue its steady string of executions, with more than half of the 43 inmates convicted and sentenced to death there due to be killed.

The spree is akin to other recent series of executions by Arkansas and the US government under the Trump administration but largely out of step with the continued decline of the death penalty in America.

Next to be executed in Oklahoma would have been Richard Glossip, who maintains he’s innocent of the 1997 murder of his boss. He was scheduled to be put to death September 22, but Stitt last week issued a 60-day stay to allow an appellate court to consider a new hearing. It’s Glossip’s fourth stay or reprieve, per his attorneys. His execution is now scheduled for December 8.

That means inmate Benjamin Cole Sr.’s execution is next, on October 20. Cole was sentenced to death for a 2002 murder, but his attorneys argue he is not competent for execution due to “profound mental illness and brain damage.”

Medical experts have diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, they say in court filings, and they have requested a competency hearing before his execution date.

The families of the victims killed by those awaiting execution “have waited decades for justice,” the attorney general said in a statement as the execution dates were set, calling the victims’ loved ones “courageous and inspiring.”

O’Connor also pointed to Oklahoma’s vote in favor of the death penalty in 2016, adding, “I’m certain that justice and safety for all of us drove that vote.”

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/25/us/james-coddington-oklahoma-execution/index.html

Jemaine Cannon Oklahoma Death Row

Jemaine Cannon was sentenced to death by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of a woman. According to court documents Jemaine Cannon would stab the victim Sharonda White Clark multiple times causing her death. Jemaine Cannon would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Oklahoma Death Row Inmate List

Jemaine Cannon 2021 Information

Gender: Male

Race: Black

Height: 6 ft 1 in

Weight: 180 lbs

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Brown

OK DOC#: 201615

Birth Date: 11/13/1971

Current Facility: OKLAHOMA STATE PENITENTIARY, MCALE

Reception Date: 12/5/1991

Jemaine Cannon More News

Jemaine Cannon, who had recently escaped from custody for an unrelated assault conviction, stabbed his girlfriend, Sharonda Clark, to death on February 3, 1995. When she was found more than twenty-four hours later, police discovered that she had been stabbed three times in the throat and once in the center of her chest. After the murder but before his arrest, Cannon spoke to his mother, telling her he had acted in self-defense and that Clark had fallen on the knife after she had attacked him. Although Cannon eventually turned himself in to police, he first called Tulsa police and provided an account of the attack to Detective Tom Fultz. In that conversation, Cannon admitted to stabbing Clark but claimed that he only did so after she attacked him and he snapped.

A jury convicted Jemaine Cannon of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1710374.html

Ronson Bush Oklahoma Death Row

Ronson Bush was sentenced to death by the State of Oklahoma for a murder. According to court documents Ronson Bush would kill the victim, William Edward Harrington, by shooting him six times. Ronson Bush would later plead guilty to murder and would be sentenced to death.

Oklahoma Death Row Inmate List

Ronson Bush 2021 Information

Gender: Male

Race: White

Height: 5 ft 8 in

Weight: 191 lbs

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Blue

OK DOC#: 256917

Birth Date: 5/15/1977

Current Facility: OKLAHOMA STATE PENITENTIARY, MCALE

Reception Date: 11/13/2009

Ronson Bush More News

A convicted killer stunned Grady County courtroom observers this week when he suddenly interrupted his first-degree murder trial and entered a blind plea of guilty.

Ronson Kyle Bush, 32, of Chickasha on Thursday, pleaded guilty to the murder of William Edward Harrington, 35, of Chickasha.

Harrington’s mother tearfully testified Friday, during the sentencing phase of the trial, about her frantic search last year to find her adult son — a search that led to a 19-minute telephone conversation with her son’s killer.

Kathy Harrington described the anxiety that seized her as she repeatedly dialed her son’s cell phone number. Finally, after hours of waiting and calling, Bush answered her son’s cell phone. Bush was Harrington’s close friend.Next phase startedDistrict Judge Richard Van Dyck started the sentencing phase Friday to determine whether Bush will receive life in prison, life in prison without parole or the death penalty. A blind plea means the guilty plea is entered without a prior agreement with the district attorney’s office.

Bush sat nearly motionless in leg shackles as Kathy Harrington recalled their conversation on the night of Dec. 22, 2008.

“I asked Ronson why he had my son’s cell phone,” said Harrington, squeezing a wad of tissue as she fought back tears. “He said he was holding it while Billy spoke to his ex-wife, Stephanie (Morgan) for him. He said Billy was 50 feet from him outside the truck. I told him to take the phone to Billy and that he would talk to his momma.

“I heard him get out of the pickup. I heard the wind and the crunch of leaves and grass. Then he got back in the truck. He said Billy couldn’t talk.”

Harrington quietly wept. She then asked for a brief break. Upon her return to the witness stand, she resumed her narrative as relatives and courtroom observers openly cried.

“I believe now that Ronson did take the phone to Billy, and that he couldn’t talk,” she added tearfully. “My son was already dead by then.”Testimony presentedAuthorities found Billy Harrington’s bullet-pierced body on the back of his rural property six miles east of Chickasha.

Prosecutors claim Bush became enraged and killed Harrington because he thought Harrington was involved in a relationship with Morgan.

Harrington had been shot six times with a .357-caliber Magnum. One shot — the fatal one, according to forensic pathologist Dr. Inas Yacoub — entered Harrington’s back, presumably while he lay on his stomach.

Bloody footprints and a trail of blood leading away from Harrington’s trailer home show he staggered outside before apparently collapsing. The rope found around Harrington’s ankle and the blunt force trauma to his face led District Attorney Bret Burns to conclude Bush “dragged” his victim “in a heinous and atrocious manner and with extreme cruelty.”

Yacoub offered one other chilling conclusion by her observation of dark, red blood around Harrington’s face and body.

“The red blood tells me, at that point, there was still some blood being pumped,” Yacoub said. “That person (Harrington) doesn’t have evidence he was actually dead at that point. I imagine he was still alive or dying.”

https://www.oklahoman.com/article/3411607/grady-county-man-changes-plea-to-guilty

Miles Bench Oklahoma Death Row

Miles Bench was sentenced to death by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of a sixteen year old girl. According to court documents Miles Bench would fatally beat Braylee Henry when she came into the store where Bench worked as a clerk. Miles Bench would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Oklahoma Death Row Inmate List

Miles Bench 2021 Information

Gender: MaleRace: American IndianHeight: 5 ft 10 inWeight: 169 lbsHair Color: BrownEye Color: Green

Alias: Miles Bench

OK DOC#: 713261Birth Date: 5/4/1991

Current Facility: OKLAHOMA STATE PENITENTIARY, MCALEReception Date: 5/18/2015

Miles Bench More News

Appellant began working at the Teepee Totem convenience store in the town of Velma, Stephens County in May of 2012. He was twenty-one years old. Appellant lived outside of town with his grandparents. His cousin, Clayton Jenson, regularly drove him to work.

¶3 After three weeks of training, Appellant began to close the store by himself. On June 6th, Jenson drove Appellant to work. They visited for 2 hours beforehand and discussed Appellant’s plan to go to California so Appellant could be a mixed martial arts (“MMA”) fighter. Jenson dropped Appellant off shortly before 2:00 p.m. Other than a sore throat, Appellant seemed absolutely normal to Jenson that day.

¶4 Sixteen-year-old Braylee Henry drove into Velma around 7:30 p.m. to get an item from the grocery store. After completing this task, Henry went into the Teepee Totem to get some candy and a soda fountain drink. Through Appellant’s admissions to his psychological expert, we know that Appellant attacked Henry while she was filing a cup at the fountain. He struck Henry and took her to the ground. He strangled Henry with a choke hold and dragged her into the store’s stockroom.

¶5 Henry played basketball for her school and was in good shape. Once inside the storeroom, she fought back. Appellant attacked Henry a second time. He repeatedly hit her. Appellant brutally beat Henry’s head, face, neck, and chest. Appellant dragged Henry across the room causing her head to strike the floor. He stomped on her head, neck, arm, and upper back with his shoe. Appellant’s prolonged savagery resulted in Henry’s death. She asphyxiated on the blood in her lungs and died from the blunt force trauma to her head and neck.

¶6 Appellant then took steps to conceal what he had done and flee to California. He put a sack around Henry’s head and placed her body inside a shopping cart. Appellant covered Henry’s body with boxes, pushed the cart out to Henry’s car, and placed her body inside the back seat. Appellant gathered up peanut butter, sunflower seeds, a toothbrush, rubbing alcohol, and razors from the store’s shelves and placed them in the car. He drove Henry’s car to a semi-secluded area on his grandparent’s land and removed her body from the car. Appellant completely undressed Henry from the waist down and pulled her jacket, tank-top, and sports bra up until they fully exposed her breasts. He dragged Henry’s body to a muddy spot in the field and partially covered it with dirt and vegetation.

¶7 Appellant went inside his grandparent’s home, put a clean shirt over the top of the shirt he was wearing, and collected additional items for his trip, including boots, clothing, hydrogen peroxide, and his wallet. Recognizing that it was too early for Appellant to be home from work, his grandfather, Stanley Bench, asked Appellant if he had quit or been fired. Appellant simply responded, “Yes.” Appellant informed Mr. Bench that he was leaving. He went outside and washed himself in the water spigot. When he was done, he stuck his head back inside the door and declared; “Pa, I love you.” Mr. Bench responded; “I do you too. Be careful out there and don’t get hurt.” Appellant stated, “Okay,” and left.

¶8 Tammy Wilkerson ventured into the Teepee Totem around 8:15 that evening. She was alarmed to discover that the clerk was missing from the store. When she looked into the storeroom she discovered a pool of blood. Wilkerson called the Velma Police Department and contacted, Melissa Lynn, one of the other store clerks who lived nearby.

¶9 When Henry failed to return on time, her mother went looking for her. She contacted law enforcement when she was unable to find Henry.

¶10 The Stephen’s County Sheriff’s Department investigated Appellant’s absence from the store. Deputy Michael Moore documented the interior of the convenience store and obtained a DNA sample from the pool of blood in the storeroom. Deputy David Martin went to the home of Appellant’s grandparents to check on Appellant’s welfare. Using canine officers, Lieutenant Chad Powell discovered Henry’s nude body in the nearby field. The officers put out a “BOLO” alert for Henry’s car.

¶11 Deputy Quinton Short of the Custer County Sheriff’s Department received the alert and observed Henry’s vehicle headed west on Interstate 40. He stopped the car and approached it on foot. Short observed in plain sight a large amount of blood in the backseat. He discovered Appellant seated in the driver’s seat and ordered him to exit the car. Once outside the sedan, Appellant spontaneously declared that he was not driving the vehicle. Slightly confounded by Appellant’s assertion, Short responded; “Then whose vehicle is it?” Appellant then stated; “I think I f****d up, I may have killed somebody.” Deputy Short observed that Appellant had blood on his clothing. He took Appellant into custody and transported him to the Custer County Jail.

¶12 Chief Investigator Robert Short of the Custer County Sheriff’s Department observed that Appellant had dirt on his face as well as on the shoulder of his shirt. He further noticed that Appellant had blood on his shirt, shoes, and socks. There was a mixture of blood and dirt on the bottom of Appellant’s shoes. Short further observed that Appellant’s hands were red and swollen.

¶13 Detention Officer, Kendall Brown, booked Appellant into the Custer County Jail. While Brown was gathering Appellant’s information, Appellant interjected several admissions. Appellant informed Brown; “I think I might have messed up. I think I may have killed somebody.” Later, Appellant mentioned; “I might have blacked out.” Appellant asked Brown if he would be able to make bond. After Brown advised Appellant that he did not know, Appellant spontaneously stated; “I think I murdered someone. The officer in the car mentioned manslaughter *** isn’t manslaughter murder?” Still later, Appellant volunteered; “I think Stephens County is gonna come get me.”

¶14 Appellant repeatedly engaged Brown in small talk. Some of his statements evinced prior knowledge concerning the mental health system. Appellant volunteered that he had undergone “psych evaluations” while in the military and added that the “dude in the straight-jacket” is usually the one screaming that he is “not crazy.”

¶15 Appellant attempted to develop grounds for an insanity plea from his conversation with Brown; Appellant asked where he was at? After Brown indicated that he was in Arapaho in Custer County, Appellant stated; “If they believe that I don’t know where I am at they might believe that I was crazy.” Thereafter, Appellant queried: “Since I blacked out do you think that I should go for an insanity plea or what?” Brown informed Appellant that he could not give him any legal advice whatsoever.

¶16 Investigator Justin Scott of the Stephens County District Attorney’s Office executed a search warrant on Appellant’s person. Appellant also spontaneously volunteered a statement to Scott. Appellant asked if Oklahoma had the death penalty. When Scott answered that under certain circumstances they do, Appellant declared that he needed death or needed to be locked away in the big house. Scott noticed that Appellant had a bite mark on his elbow.

¶17 Forensic testing revealed that Henry’s DNA profile matched the DNA profile of the blood discovered in the storeroom. Similarly, Henry’s profile matched the DNA profile of the blood found on Appellant’s shoes.

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4541768/bench-v-state/