Inmate Who Insisted He Was a 'Changed' Man Put to Death

Oklahoma has executed a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her 7-month-old daughter nearly 20 years ago. Raymond Johnson, 52, was pronounced dead at 10:12am on Thursday following a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, prison officials said, per the AP. Johnson was sentenced to death for killing 24-year-old Brooke Whitaker and her 7-month-old daughter, Kya, in June 2007. Prosecutors said Whitaker, who also had three other children, had been arguing with Johnson at her Tulsa home 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.

She was still conscious, however, and begged Johnson to spare her and Kya, prosecutors said in documents prepared for Johnson's clemency hearing in April. "She begged him to call 911. ... She begged him to think of her children," the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office said. Instead, Johnson retrieved a gas can from a toolshed in the backyard, doused Whitaker and the house with gasoline, lit a dish towel on fire, threw it at Whitaker, and left, the attorney general's office said. Whitaker died from head injuries and smoke inhalation, while her daughter died from severe burns.

"Raymond Johnson is a cruel murderer who inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering on his victims," Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement. Johnson's attorneys didn't file a last-minute appeal with the Supreme Court to halt his execution. His attorneys had unsuccessfully argued in earlier appeals that Johnson's arrest was illegal, police had coerced his confession from him, and his trial lawyer conceded his guilt in Whitaker's death without his OK. In April, Oklahoma's five-member Pardon and Parole Board voted unanimously to deny Johnson clemency. During that hearing, Johnson apologized to the victims' family and asked for forgiveness, saying he was a changed person.

"I apologize. No excuses, no justifications, a sincere apology," Johnson said in an interview with Death Penalty Action, a national anti-death penalty group. "And to know that it's sincere ... look how I've changed. I'm living a remorseful life." Whitaker's family, however, asked for the lethal injection to proceed. "Executing him will not give me my mom or sister back, it will not take away almost 20 years of pain," Logan Kleck, Whitaker's oldest daughter, said in a letter to the board. "What it will do is finally stop him from continuing to hurt us." Johnson was the second person put to death this year in Oklahoma, and the 11th in the country.