Oklahoma completes execution for murder committed 25+ years ago

As reported in this local article, “convicted murderer has been executed in Oklahoma as a direct result of President Donald Trump’s return to office.  John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, was pronounced dead at 10:11 a.m. Thursday, June 12, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.” Here is more:

He had been scheduled for execution on Dec. 15, 2022, but the Biden administration refused to return him to Oklahoma from a federal prison in Louisiana. The transfer went through on March 1, weeks after Trump began his second term.

He was executed for the fatal shooting of Mary Agnes Bowles, who was kidnapped from the parking lot of a Tulsa mall on Aug. 31, 1999. The victim was 77. Hanson and an accomplice, Victor Miller, wanted the retired banker’s car for a robbery spree. Hanson has always denied being the shooter, his attorneys said.

Hanson had been serving a life sentence, plus 82 years, at the U.S. Penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana, for federal crimes involving the robbery spree. Oklahoma’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, sought Hanson’s transfer after Trump issued a sweeping executive order on his first day back in office “restoring” the death penalty…. “This case demonstrates that no matter how long it takes, Oklahoma will hold murderers accountable for their crimes,” Drummond said in a news release after witnessing the execution….

The execution took only 10 minutes to complete after Hanson made his brief final statement. It was the 17th in Oklahoma since lethal injections resumed in October 2021 after a long hiatus and one of the fastest.