oklahoma | My Crime Library

Ronald Lott Oklahoma Execution

Ronald Lott was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the sexual assault and murders of two elderly women. According to court documents Ronald Lott would sexually assault and murder the first woman in 1986 and the second woman in 1987. DNA would tie Ronald Lott to both murders. Ronald Lott would be convicted and sentenced to death. Ronald Lott would be executed by lethal injection on December 10, 2013

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Oklahoma on Tuesday executed a man convicted of raping and murdering two elderly women in the 1980s, while Missouri appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to be allowed to proceed with an execution hours later.

Ronald Clinton Lott, 53, was pronounced dead at 6:06 p.m. (7:06 EST) after a lethal injection at a state prison in Oklahoma, state Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said.

Lott was the 37th person executed in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Lott was convicted of raping and killing Anna Laura Fowler, 83, in 1986 and Zelma Cutler, 90, in 1987 in their Oklahoma City homes after DNA evidence linked him to the crimes.

He made no final statement, Massie said.

“Ronald Lott was sentenced to death by a jury of his peers for the heinous and unconscionable acts he committed against Anna and Zelma in their homes,” Attorney General Scott Pruitt said in a statement.

According to Oklahoma criminal appeals court records, evidence presented at trial suggested Lott attacked the women and sat on their chests, breaking their ribs. Both had numerous bruises and were asphyxiated.

Another man, Robert Lee Miller Jr., had originally confessed to the rape and murder of the two women and served 11 years, seven on death row, before DNA evidence led authorities to Lott. Miller was released in 1998.

Lott was the fifth man executed in Oklahoma in 2013. The state is also scheduled to execute Johnny Dale Black, 48, on December 17 for his conviction in the 1998 stabbing death of Ringling, Oklahoma, horse trainer Bill Pogue.

In Missouri, state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday night to lift a federal appeals court stay and allow them to proceed with the execution of Allen Nicklasson, which is scheduled for early Wednesday.

Nicklasson, 41, is arguing that his lawyers were ineffective. An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Monday stayed his execution and the full Eighth Circuit on Tuesday denied a Missouri request to rehear the decision.

Nicklasson was found guilty of murder for the August 1994 shooting of motorist Richard Drummond, who stopped on a highway to help Nicklasson and two others whose car had broken down.

The three had stolen guns and ammunition in a home burglary before their vehicle broke down. When Drummond stopped to offer them a ride, the men abducted him, took him to a wooded area and shot him in the head, according to court records.

One of the men, Dennis Skillicorn, was executed in 2009. The third person, Tim DeGraffenreid, who was 17 at the time, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a reduced sentence.

Nicklasson and Skillicorn were also convicted of killing an Arizona couple while on the run after killing Drummond.

Nicklasson had been scheduled to die October 23, but Missouri Governor Jay Nixon halted the execution due to broad criticism over the state’s planned use of the drug propofol, widely used as an anesthetic in medical procedures.

The case is one of many caught up in a national debate over what drugs can or should be used for executions, as capital punishment opponents pressure pharmaceutical companies to cut off supplies of drugs for executions.

Missouri in November used pentobarbital, a short-acting barbiturate, mixed by a compounding pharmacy to execute serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oklahoma-executes-man-convicted-killing-two-women-missouri-execution-stayed-flna2d11724181

Anthony Banks Oklahoma Execution

Anthony Banks was executed by the State of Oklahoma for a sexual assault and murder. According to court documents Anthony Banks would kidnap Sun Travis who would later be sexually assaulted and murdered. Anthony Banks who was in prison at the time would be tied to the murder of Sun Travis by DNA. Anthony Banks would be convicted and sentenced to death. Anthony Banks would be executed by lethal injection on September 10 2013

Anthony Banks More News

Oklahoma executed a man on Tuesday for the rape and murder of a Tulsa woman in 1979, a crime that went unsolved for 18 years until new DNA techniques led to his conviction.

Anthony Banks, 60, was pronounced dead at 6:07 p.m. (2307 GMT). Banks was convicted and sentenced to death for the June 6, 1979, murder of Sun I. Kim Travis, a 24-year-old Korean woman who he had raped, beaten, shot in the face and dumped in a ditch, according to court documents.

“God bless you, I love you and I will see you again,” Banks said before he died of lethal injection, according to Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie.

Banks had three apple-filled rolls and two bottles of water as his last meal, Massie said.

His prior death sentence for the killing of a convenience store clerk was overturned on appeal and converted to life with possible parole in a plea deal. But his bid to appeal his death sentence in the killing of Travis failed, and he had been on death row since November 14, 1999.

The crime was unsolved for almost two decades until the Tulsa Police Department used new DNA investigative techniques to tie Banks to the crime, court documents said.

With DNA evidence found on the victim’s body and clothes, police were able to charge Banks and co-defendant Allen Wayne Nelson with Travis’ murder in 1997.

Banks was the fourth person put to death in Oklahoma this year and the 24th in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks capital punishment statistics.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-execution-oklahoma-idUKBRE9891J420130911

Brian Davis Oklahoma Execution

Brian Davis was executed by the State of Oklahoma for a sexual assault and murder. According to court documents Brian Davis returned home to find his girlfriend and daughter missing. Brian Davis would call his girlfriends mother to ask about their whereabouts. The mother could not reach her daughter and would go over to her daughters apartment. When she arrived the woman would be sexually assaulted and murdered. The woman’s daughter would find her body the next day. Brian Davis would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Brian Davis would be executed by lethal injection on June 25, 2013

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A man convicted of raping and murdering his girlfriend’s mother in 2001 was put to death on Tuesday, despite a recommendation by Oklahoma’s pardon and parole board to commute his death sentence after he apologized.

Brian Darrell Davis, 39, received a lethal injection Tuesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Davis was the third inmate to be executed by Oklahoma this year and the second in as many weeks.

Davis read a biblical-themed statement that included psalms and scripture-based references.

“I shall not die but live. His word is will, and let His will be done,” Davis said. “I give God the last word. Thank you.”

Moments later, Davis looked up at the ceiling as the lethal drug was injected. His eyes slowly closed and his left shoulder began to twitch as the lethal drug took effect.

Davis was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m., five minutes after the lethal drug was administered.

The state’s parole board had suggested to Gov. Mary Fallin that she cut Davis’ sentence to life without parole. Fallin rejected the board recommendation, with spokesman Aaron Cooper saying the governor reviewed Davis’ file and was “satisfied that justice is being served in this case.”

A jury convicted Davis in 2003 of first-degree murder and first-degree rape in the death of his girlfriend’s mother, Josephine Sanford, 52. Davis was sentenced to death on the murder conviction and 100 years in prison for rape.

The victim’s daughter, Stacey Sanford, discovered her mother dead in November 2001 in the Ponca City apartment she shared with Davis. Prosecutors said Josephine Sanford had six stab wounds, a broken jaw and marks around her neck. DNA evidence showed Davis had sex with the victim.

Davis went to the parole board this month, took responsibility for the victim’s death and apologized. He said the sexual contact was consensual and that a fight broke out after he remarked about its quality.

“I was rude at the end,” Davis said, appearing before the panel by video. “We were mad at each other after my comment. And one thing led to another. It just happened so quick.”

The board voted 4-1 in favor of clemency, prompting Attorney General Scott Pruitt to say the board was usurping the jury that convicted Davis and that the inmate deserved to die for a brutal crime.

Davis’ defense attorney, Jack Fisher, said as the execution date approached that justice was not being served.

“By the end of the clemency hearing, four of the five board members were convinced that justice could only be served by a sentence of life without parole,” Fisher said. “Why Governor Fallin would substitute her judgment for four members of the board is a mystery to me.”

Death penalty opponents, who rallied Monday at the state Capitol to urge Fallin to show mercy, argued that Davis deserved life in prison, not death, after he showed remorse.

They also suggested that since Davis, who is black, was convicted by an all-white jury in Kay County that it wasn’t truly a jury of his peers and there could have been bias.

“Our governor is in a position to make a wrong right,” said Garland Pruitt, president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the NAACP. “Wrongs can be righted, hearts can be changed, but it takes those in office to help make those changes take place.”

Last week, the state executed James Lewis DeRosa, 36, for his part in the brutal killings of a LeFlore County ranch couple in 2000.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/25/oklahoma-execution-davis/2458203/

James Derosa Oklahoma Execution

James Derosa was executed by the State of Oklahoma for a double murder. According to court documents James Derosa and John Castleberry would go to a ranch where James worked. The two men would talk themselves into the home where they would murder the elderly couple and rob the home. John Castleberry would quickly plead guilty and be sentenced to life and James Derosa would go to trial where he was convicted and sentenced to death. James Derosa would be executed by lethal injection on June 19, 2013

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Oklahoma executed a man Tuesday for the stabbing deaths of a couple on whose ranch he had worked.

James Lewis DeRosa, 36, was killed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was the second inmate the state executed this year.

Prosecutors say DeRosa and John Eric Castleberry, 33, went to the home of Curtis and Gloria Plummer in the LeFlore County town of Poteau on Oct. 2, 2000, and persuaded the couple to let them inside. DeRosa had worked at the couple’s ranch.

Authorities say DeRosa and Castleberry stabbed the couple, who were in their 70s, and slashed their throats. Prosecutors say the two made off with $73 and the Plummers’ pickup. Castleberry pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and testified against DeRosa as part of a deal that included a no-parole life prison term.

Although it’s been nearly 13 years since the killings, the Plummers’ relatives say they still feel the void their deaths created.

“I miss having a sister. I struggle when someone asks if I have a sister,” Jo Milligan wrote in an April 24 letter to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. “Glo was my big sister – my only sister – my only sibling. And Curt became my brother when I was 5 years old,” Milligan wrote. “When shopping and I pass birthday cards, Valentine cards, etc., always the ones for ‘Sister’ reach out to me. And I cry in the card aisle.”

Janet Tolbert, the victims’ daughter, wrote that she still has nightmares after discovering her parents’ bodies.

“I saw my 70- and 73-year-old parents laying in pools of blood that went through the carpet to the cement foundation, with both of their throats slashed from ear to ear and stab wounds all over,” she said.

The Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 last month to reject DeRosa’s request for a commutation. Speaking at the hearing via teleconferencing from prison, DeRosa apologized.

“I can’t express how truly sorry I am for the pain I’ve caused the Plummer family,” he said. “I take full responsibility for their deaths. If not for me, they wouldn’t have died that night.”

DeRosa told the board he had since turned to religion and urged the board to set aside his death sentence so he could be a positive influence on other prisoners.

DeRosa was one of two Oklahoma death row inmates set to be executed this month.

Brian Darrell Davis, 39, is scheduled to be executed June 25 for the rape and murder of his girlfriend’s mother nearly 12 years ago in Ponca City. The Pardon and Parole Board recommended June 6 that Davis’ death sentence be commuted to life in prison, a recommendation that was rejected by Gov. Mary Fallin.

Another death-row inmate, Anthony Rozelle Banks, 60, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 10 for the June 6, 1979, killing of Sun “Kim” Travis, 24.

Travis was abducted from a parking lot at her Tulsa apartment complex, raped and shot in the head.

https://tulsaworld.com/news/state-and-regional/killer-executed-for-deaths-of-leflore-county-couple/article_75f7a395-70d0-5274-9acb-fd7b17f9d59d.html

Steven Smith Ohio Execution

Steven Smith was executed by the State of Ohio for the sexual assault and murder of a six month old infant. According to court documents Steven Smith would sexually assault the six month old girl who would die from her injuries. Steven Smith would be convicted and sentenced to death. Steven Smith would be executed on May 1, 2013 by lethal injection

Steven Smith More News

Steven Smith, a man convicted of killing a 6-month-old infant as he raped her, was executed Wednesday morning despite his arguments that he never meant to hurt her.

Smith, 46, was executed by lethal injection for the September 1998 killing of his live-in girlfriend’s daughter, Autumn Carter, in Mansfield in northern Ohio.

Smith had recently tried to get his sentence reduced to life in prison, arguing that he was too drunk to realize that his assault was killing Autumn and didn’t mean to hurt the baby. The Ohio Parole Board and Gov. John Kasich unanimously turned him down, with the board calling him “the worst of the worst.”

Smith’s daughter, Brittney Smith, and niece were present at the execution as were Autumn’s mother, aunt and grandfather.

Autumn’s aunt, Kaylee Bashline has said that her family has no reason to doubt that Smith is guilty and that it’s not fair that he had 15 years since the crime to live, visit family and say his goodbyes.

“He got all that, and what did she get?” Bashline said. “She got to be killed and put in the ground where none of us gets to see her anymore. I don’t find it right.”

Brittney Smith, 21, has said she has never believed her father committed the crime.

“I know my dad’s innocent,” she said. “I do not believe he did this, and you know, he raised all my cousins, my sister before I was even born, and he never did anything (sexually).”

Back on the night of September 29, 1998, Autumn’s mother was awoken by Smith, her live-in boyfriend of four months.

Smith, who was extremely drunk and naked, laid a naked and lifeless Autumn on Frye’s bed, according to court records.

Frye rushed the baby and her other 2-year-old daughter to a neighbor’s house and called 911. Autumn was pronounced dead after doctors tried to revive her for more than an hour, and Smith was arrested.

The baby was covered in bruises and welts, had cuts on her forehead and had severe injuries showing she had been brutally raped, though no semen was present.

At the home, there was no sign of forced entry, and police found a large amount of white cloth that came from Autumn’s diaper strewn about; police found the rest of the diaper in a garbage bin outside, along with 10 empty cans of beer and a T-shirt.

A jury found Smith guilty of aggravated murder and sentenced him to death.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steven-smith-executed-ohio-man-who-killed-raped-6-month-old-given-lethal-injection/