McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma executed a man Thursday whose transfer to state custody was expedited by the Trump administration.
John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:11 a.m., prison officials said. Hanson was sentenced to die after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing a Tulsa woman in 1999.
“Peace to everyone,” Hanson said while strapped to a gurney inside the prison's death chamber.
The execution began at 10:01 a.m. After the lethal drugs began to flow, a doctor entered the death chamber at 10:06 a.m. and declared him unconscious.
Hanson, whose name in some federal court records is George John Hanson, had been serving a life sentence in federal prison in Louisiana for several unrelated federal convictions. Federal officials transferred him to Oklahoma custody in March to follow through on President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty.
Hanson’s attorneys argued in a last-minute appeal that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month, claiming that one of the board members who denied him clemency was biased because he worked for the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office when Hanson was prosecuted. A district court judge this week issued a temporary stay halting the execution, but that was later vacated.
Prosecutors alleged Hanson and accomplice Victor Miller kidnapped Mary Bowles from a Tulsa shopping mall. Prosecutors alleged the pair drove Bowles to a gravel pit near Owasso, where Miller shot and killed property owner Jerald Thurman. The two then drove Bowles a short distance away, where Hanson shot and killed Bowles, according to prosecutors. Miller received a no-parole life prison sentence for his role in the crimes.
Thurman's son, Jacob Thurman, witnessed Thursday's execution and said it was the culmination of “the longest nightmare of our lives.”
“All families lose in this situation,” he said. “No one's a winner.”
Bowles' niece, Sara Mooney, expressed frustration at the litigation over Hanson's death sentence that dragged on for decades, calling it an “expensive and ridiculous exercise.”
“Capital punishment is not an effective form of justice when it takes 26 years,” she said.
During last month’s clemency hearing, Hanson expressed remorse for his involvement in the crimes and apologized to the victims’ families.
“I’m not an evil person,” Hanson said via a video link from the prison. “I was caught in a situation I couldn’t control. I can’t change the past, but I would if I could.”
Hanson’s attorneys acknowledged he participated in the kidnapping and carjacking, but said there was no definitive evidence that he shot and killed Bowles. They painted Hanson as a troubled youth with autism and who was controlled and manipulated by the domineering Miller.
Both Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond and his predecessor, John O’Connor, had sought Hanson’s transfer during President Joe Biden’s administration, but the U.S. Bureau of Prisons denied it, saying the transfer was not in the public interest.
Sean Murphy, The Associated Press
