Oklahoma completes last (and 25th) execution in the US for 2024

As reported in this AP piece, an “Oklahoma man who killed a 10-year-old girl in a cannibalistic fantasy died by lethal injection Thursday in the nation’s 25th and final execution of the year.”  Here is more:

Kevin Ray Underwood was pronounced dead at 10:14 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, state Department of Corrections spokesperson Lance West said. It was Oklahoma’s fourth execution of the year, and it took place on Underwood’s 45th birthday. Oklahoma uses a three-drug lethal injection process that begins with the sedative midazolam followed by a second drug that paralyzes the inmate and a third that stops their heart.

Underwood, a former grocery store worker, was sentenced to die for killing Jamie Rose Bolin in 2006. Underwood admitted to luring Jamie into his apartment and beating her over the head with a cutting board before suffocating and sexually assaulting her. He told investigators that he nearly beheaded Jamie in his bathtub before abandoning his plans to eat her….

Underwood’s attorneys had argued that he deserved to be spared the death penalty because of his long history of abuse and serious mental health issues that included autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar and panic disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and various deviant sexual paraphilias. Prosecutors argued that many people suffer from mental illness, but that doesn’t justify harming children.

With two executions this week (this one and one in Indiana), a bit of recent death penalty history has been made.  It’s been more than a quarter century since the US has had two executions this close to Christmas.  In addition, 25 total executions for the year equals the most for a single year in the US since 2015.