"Okla. man executed in woman's 1979 slaying," is the AP report by Tim Talley. It's via the Wichita Falls Times Record News.
An Oklahoma death row inmate convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a 25-year-old Korean national 34 years ago was executed Tuesday after he apologized for taking the victim's life and said his execution "is justified."Anthony Rozelle Banks, 61, was pronounced dead at 6:07 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection of drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Banks is the fourth Oklahoma death row inmate to be executed this year.
Banks was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by a Tulsa County jury for the June 6, 1979, killing of Sun "Kim" Travis. Banks was already serving a life prison sentence for his conviction in the April 11, 1978, slaying of a Tulsa convenience store clerk during an armed robbery when he was linked to Travis' death by DNA evidence 18 years after her death.
"I can't express the terrible things I've done. I'm sorry," Banks said.
"To know that I took lives hurts me," he said. He said he knew he had also hurt the victims' family members.
It was Oklahoma's 106th execution since 1990.
"Execution protesters outside governor's mansion," is also by Associated Press, via the San Francisco Chronicle.
A handful of execution opponents gathered outside the Oklahoma governor's mansion to protest the scheduled execution of a 61-year-old man at the state penitentiary in McAlester.
And:
Dane Gill said he's opposed to anything that takes away a life and said the death penalty is fiscally irresponsible and that it doesn't deter crime.
To date there have been 24 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,344 post-Furman executions since 1977.
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