Oklahoma on Thursday executed a 66-year-old man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 7-year-old girl in the year 1984.
The convict -- Richard Rojem -- was given three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, prison officials said, adding that he was declared dead at 10:16 am.
Rojem had denied any responsibility of killing his former stepdaughter Layla Cummings. The mutilated and partially clothed body of the child, who had been stabbed to death, was found in a field in rural Washita County near the Burns Flat town on July 7, 1984.
Previously, Rojem was convicted of raping two teenage girls in Michigan. Prosecutors had said that he had been furious at Layla for telling her mother -- Mindy Lynn Cummings -- that he was sexually abusing her, which resulted in the duo's divorce and Rojem's return to prison for parole violation.
During a mercy hearing this month, Rojem's attorneys argued that the DNA sample taken from the girl's fingernail did not link him to the crime. "If my client's DNA is not present, he should not be convicted," attorney Jack Fisher said.
Mindy had also written to the parole board, saying, "For many years, the shock of losing her and the knowledge of the sheer terror, pain and suffering that she endured at the hands of this soulless monster was more than I could fathom how to survive day to day."
Layla's mother said that everything she could have been "was stolen from her one horrific night". "She never got to be more than the precious 7-year-old that she was. And she remains in our hearts -- forever 7," USA Today quoted Mindy as saying.
Testifying at the court hearing via video conferencing, Rojem had said that he was not responsible for the girl's death. “I wasn't a good human being for the first part of my life, and I don't deny that,” said Rojem, handcuffed and wearing a red prison uniform. “But I went to prison. I learned my lesson and I left all that behind.”
The panel had voted 5-0 not to recommend to the governor that Rojem's life be spared.
Meanwhile, prosecutors also said that there was enough evidence to convict Rojem, including a finger print that was found outside the girl's apartment on a cup, which was from a bar that Rojem had left just before the girl was abducted.
They said that a condom wrapper was also found near the girl's corpse, which was also linked to a used condom found in Rojem's bedroom.
A Washita County jury, in 1985, convicted Rojem after deliberating for merely 45 minutes. His previous capital punishment sentences were twice overturned by appellate courts due to trial errors.
A Custer County jury ultimately handed Rojem his third death sentence in 2007.
Reportedly, Rojem's final meal consisted of a small Little Caeser's pizza -- double cheese/double pepperoni, eight salt packets, eight crushed red pepper packets, Vernors Ginger Ale, bottled, and four ounces of vanilla ice cream cups.
Notably, the United States' Oklahoma had executed more inmates per capita than any other state in the nation since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Now, since resuming lethal injections in October 2021, it has carried out 13 executions after a nearly six-year-long hiatus resulting from problems with executives in 2014 and 2015.
As per the Oklahoma execution protocols, the three-drug lethal injection contains midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride, USA Today said.
(With AP inputs)
