McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma has executed a man who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her 7-month-old daughter nearly 20 years ago.
Raymond Johnson, 52, was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. Thursday following a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, prison officials said.
He was sentenced to death for killing 24-year-old Brooke Whitaker and her 7-month-old daughter, Kya, in June 2007.
“To Brooke and Kya and your family, I want to apologize for my actions and the pain I caused you,” Johnson said while strapped to a gurney inside the death chamber. “I hope people can speak your names without my name attached to it. I hurt you. One day, I hope you can forgive me.”
Johnson's spiritual advisor, Kurt Borgmann, read Scripture in the chamber during the execution, which lasted about 11 minutes. A tear rolled out of Johnson’s left eye as Borgmann began to speak. A doctor entered the room and declared Johnson unconscious about six minutes after the first drugs began to flow.
Oklahoma uses the sedative midazolam, followed by vecuronium bromide to halt breathing and potassium chloride to stop the heart.
Angie Short, one of Whitaker's aunt, criticized the delays in an execution originally scheduled for May 2024, saying Whitaker's mom died about five months after that.
“Because of the delays, my sister didn't get to witness justice,” Short said. “This couldn't bring them back. But we'll no longer have to see his face on TV. He's no longer associated with Brooke and Kya. Now I think we can finally begin to heal after 20 years.”
Prosecutors said Johnson and Whitaker had been arguing at her home in Tulsa before he repeatedly hit her over the head with a metal claw hammer. Whitaker’s skull was fractured and she had more than 20 lacerations on her face and scalp. But she was still conscious and begged Johnson to spare her and Kya, who was sleeping in a bedroom, prosecutors said in documents prepared for Johnson’s clemency hearing in April.
“She begged him to call 911. She begged him to let her mom come get baby Kya. She begged him to think of her children,” the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said. Whitaker had three other children.
Source: WPLG
