Oklahoma executed a man Thursday who was convicted of kidnapping, raping, and killing his 7-year-old former stepdaughter in 1984, per the AP. Richard Rojem, 66, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was declared dead at 10:16am, prison officials said. Rojem, who had been in prison since 1985, was the longest-serving inmate on Oklahoma's death row. When asked if he had any last words, Rojem, who was strapped to a gurney and had an IV in his tattooed left arm, said: "I don't. I've said my goodbyes."
He looked briefly toward several witnesses who were inside a room next to the death chamber before the first drug, the sedative midazolam, began to flow. He was declared unconscious about 5 minutes later, at 10:08am, and stopped breathing about 10:10am. Rojem had denied responsibility for killing his former stepdaughter, Layla Cummings. The child's mutilated and partially clothed body was discovered in a field in rural Washita County near the town of Burns Flat on July 7, 1984. She had been stabbed to death.
Rojem was previously convicted of raping two teenage girls in Michigan, and prosecutors said he was angry at Layla Cummings because she reported that Rojem sexually abused her, leading to his divorce from the girl's mother and his return to prison for violating his parole. In a statement read by Attorney General Gentner Drummond after the execution, Layla's mother, Mindy Lynn Cummings, said, "We remember, honor and hold her forever in our hearts as the sweet and precious 7-year-old she was."
(More
execution stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
