Michael DeWayne Smith executed for two 2002 murders in Oklahoma City
Known as 'Hoover Killer,' Smith said he couldn't avoid his gang involvement. "It was one of the biggest regrets of my life, actually." Death row inmate Michael DeWayne Smith, known as "HK' or "Hoover Killer," was executed for two 2002 murders in Oklahoma City in 2002. Smith was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary after a lethal injection. This was the 12th execution since the state resumed capital punishment in October 2021 after a hiatus of more than six years. The state claims Smith chose "a life of crime and violence" centered around the gang and was an active recruiter for the Oak Grove Posse. Despite his confession to the crimes, Smith maintains he is innocent and has told the parole board he was high on drugs when he confessed. The execution proceeded despite requests for emergency stays from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Publié : il y a un mois par nolan clay, Nolan Clay The Oklahoman dans General
McALESTER — Death row inmate Michael DeWayne Smith would have rather been an athlete in college than a member of an Oklahoma City street gang.
"I've always regretted that," he said in a phone interview. "I was good at sports. I could have easily got a scholarship."
Smith was executed Thursday morning for two fatal shootings in Oklahoma City in 2002. It was the 12th execution since the state resumed capital punishment in October 2021 after a hiatus of more than six years.
Smith was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary after a lethal injection. He was 41. He declined to make a last statement, saying, "Nah, I'm good," according to media witnesses.
He committed the murders, according to attorneys for the state, because he chose "a life of crime and violence" centered around the gang. Smith maintained he was innocent even though he confessed to police.
"Michael DeWayne Smith, known more commonly by the moniker 'HK' or 'Hoover Killer,' is a proud member of the Oak Grove Posse," the state attorney general and his assistants told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board.
"Smith ... did not just join a gang. Smith was an active recruiter for the OGP and their self-appointed enforcer."
In a phone interview Monday, Smith told The Oklahoman he couldn't avoid his gang involvement and lacked a father figure to keep him focused.
"As a kid ... you're surrounded ... by the gang members or people affiliated with gangs. ... It was the community I was in. That was the culture. ... It was one of the biggest regrets of my life, actually."
The execution went forward after both the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his requests for emergency stays.
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 March 6 to deny Smith clemency.
Smith had told the parole board he was hallucinating from drug use when he confessed to police. "I didn't commit these crimes. I didn't kill these people. I was high on drugs," he said.
Smith was convicted at trial of first-degree murder for two fatal shootings on Feb. 22, 2002. Jurors agreed he should be executed for both deaths.
The first victim, Janet Moore, 40, was shot once at her apartment. The second victim, Sharath Babu Pulluru, 24, was shot nine times at a convenience store then doused with lighter fluid and set on fire.
Neither was Smith's original target, according to testimony at the 2003 trial.
Smith, then 19, was high on PCP and hiding from the police, who had a warrant for his arrest on a 2001 murder case.
In the first shooting, Smith actually was looking for Moore's son, Phillip Zachary, because he mistakenly thought Zachary was a police informant, prosecutors said.
"It's her fault she died," Smith told police. "She panicked and she got shot. ... She like, 'Help! Help!' I'm like, I had to. I had no choice."
Smith next went to the A&Z Food Mart to shoot a worker over comments to the newspaper about a robbery at another food mart next door, prosecutors said. He instead killed Pulluru, who was filling in at the store for a friend. "I let him know, like, this if for my little homie that's dead," he told police.
A clerk at the Trans Food Mart had killed a fellow gang member during a robbery on Nov. 8, 2000. A worker at the A&Z Food Mart had told The Oklahoman in 2000 he was proud of his neighbor.
"The rest of the kids will learn a lesson by him being dead and stop doing these things," the A&Z Food Mart worker had said.
The shootings in 2002 came days before a trial for two other gang members involved in the robbery was set to begin. Smith confessed to his roommate and a neighbor before his arrest, according to their testimony at his trial.
Smith did not request a last meal, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections told reporters.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond witnessed the execution. He read statements from the victims' families afterward. They said justice had been served.
Drummond said he prayed that the execution brings some measure of peace for the families.
"My heart aches over the agony they have endured," he said. “I want the people of Oklahoma to know that the victims of Michael Smith were good and decent people who did not deserve their fate.
“Janet and Sharath were murdered simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was all."
In the execution room with Smith was his spiritual adviser, Jeff Hood, who read from a Bible.
Hood said he told Smith before the execution began that his family loved him. "He began to cry," Smith said. "He was talking about his mom and how much he loved her. He was talking about his brothers and how much he loved them."
Hood recalled seeing tears coming down the right side of Smith's face the entire time of the lethal injection. He said the last tear streamed down after Smith was pronounced dead. "It was spooky. It was eerie," Hood said. "It was powerful."
Demonstrators protested against the execution outside the governor's mansion.
The Rev. Don Heath, chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, described Smith as a troubled and vulnerable young man with intellectual disabilities.
"He was ill served by advisers who encouraged him to proclaim his innocence instead of accepting responsibility for his crimes," Heath said. "That cost him any chance for clemency. He needed mercy and forgiveness and got none.”
The archbishop of Oklahoma City called for "people of goodwill" to advocate for an end to the death penalty in Oklahoma.
"The death penalty, resulting in the intentional taking of another life, is flawed, both in its application and subject to error and bias, as we’ve seen recently in other cases here and across the country," Archbishop Paul S. Coakley said.
Smith was one of the few death row inmates in the nation to be convicted of three or more murders.
He was convicted at a separate trial of second-degree murder for the fatal shooting of Otis Payne outside an Oklahoma City club on Nov. 24, 2001. He had admitted to police that he handed the gun to the shooter, David Burns. He was sentenced to life in prison for that crime.
Les sujets: Crime