News

• 18 July 2001 - Oklahoma Man Executed for 1988 Death
  McALESTER, Okla. (AP) - A man who strangled a 64-year-old grandmother after breaking into her home in 1988 was put to death by injection Tuesday night. Jerald Wayne Harjo, 40, broke into Ruth Porter's house to try to find the keys to her van and killed her in her bed, authorities said. more>>>
  
  
• 18 July 2001 - Harjo executed
  MCALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- A man who strangled a Sasakwa grandmother and smothered her with her pillow 13 years ago paid for the crime with his life Tuesday night. Jerald Wayne Harjo, 40, died at 9:10 p.m. in Oklahoma's death chamber. Harjo's feet knocked together under the white sheet draped across his body. His eyelids fluttered when he closed them, after telling the warden, "Uh, no," when asked if he had any last words. more>>>
  
  
• 18 July 2001 - Web site 'handicaps' executions
  Jerald Harjo got to death row in Oklahoma along the main atrocity highway; he strangled an 84-year-old woman while robbing her home. Nothing legally remote or narratively circuitous about that, so there's no mystery in the fact that his case attracted little national notice. It's of no significant concern even in Oklahoma and might more likely be a talking point in Texas, because if Oklahoma put Harjo to death this week as planned (he was scheduled to die late last night), it would mean that Oklahoma has executed 13 people this year to Texas' seven. Whenever Oklahoma goes up a touchdown on Texas, Texans grow concerned. more>>>
  
  
• 18 July 2001 - Oklahoma Inmate Executed
  The three boys bowed their heads obediently as the adults prayed, but shot occasional furtive glances at the walls, the guard tower and the sheriff's officers nearby. A few hundred yards away, three girls sat on a porch and appeared not to notice anything out of the ordinary. A few hundred yards further away a man was preparing to die. Just over an hour later he did. more>>>
  
  
• 18 July 2001 - Oklahoma Leads The Country In Executions
  Renny MacKay reports from Oklahoma, where a man who strangled a sixty year-old grandmother was put to death by lethal injection late last night. Oklahoma has now executed fourteen people this year, pushing it past Texas as the death penalty capital of the U.S. listen>>> Source: Free Speech Radio News
  
  
• 18 July 2001 - HARJO executed for Seminole County woman's strangulation
  McALESTER, Okla. (AP) _ The family of a Sasakwa grandmother peered through tinted glass as the man who smothered her with a pillow gasped for air and died on a gurney. more>>>
  
  
• 18 July 2001 - Harjo Executed Tuesday Night
  Jerald Harjo was put to death for strangling and possibly raping Ruth Porter 13 years ago. Prosecutors said that he wanted to steal her van, and went into her home to get the keys. more>>>
  
  
• 18 July 2001 - Killer executed for strangling woman
  MCALESTER — A man who strangled a Sasakwa grandmother and smothered her with her pillow 13 years ago paid for the crime with his life Tuesday night. Jerald Wayne Harjo, 40, died at 9:10 p.m. in Oklahoma’s death chamber. Harjo’s feet knocked together under the white sheet draped across his body. His eyelids fluttered when he closed them, after telling the warden, "Uh, no," when asked if he had any last words. more>>>
  
  
• 17 July 2001 - Okla. Man Executed for 1988 Death
  McALESTER, Okla. –– A man who strangled a 64-year-old grandmother after breaking into her home in 1988 was put to death by injection Tuesday night. more>>>
  
  
• 17 July 2001 - Oklahoma Inmate Executed
  McALESTER, Okla. –– A man who strangled a 64-year-old grandmother after breaking into her home in 1988 was put to death by injection Tuesday night. more>>>>
  
  
• 17 July 2001 - Eight arrested outside AG’s office
  Eight death penalty protesters were arrested outside a branch of the attorney general’s office today, about four hours before the scheduled execution of Jerald Wayne Harjo. The protesters — six men and two women — surrendered peaceably to police officers as they approached the building from a parking lot. They were handcuffed and booked on complaints of trespassing. more>>>
  
  
• 17 July 2001 - HARJO heads to death chamber Tuesday night for Seminole County woman's strangulation
  On Tuesday night, Harjo, 40, is set to pay with his life for the Jan. 17, 1988, murder of the 64-year-old elementary school secretary and grandmother. more>>>
  
  
• 17 July 2001 - Harjo Execution Set For 9 P.M. Tuesday
  McALESTER, Okla., 11:22 a.m. CDT July 17, 2001 -- Jerald Wayne Harjo is scheduled to die Tuesday night for the 1988 death of Ruth Porter, a 64-year-old elementary school secretary and grandmother. more>>>
  
  
• 16 July 2001 - Strange bedfellows on death penalty issue
  The Oklahoman was right in recognizing the death penalty in China as a gross violation of international human rights standards. The same holds true for the death penalty in Oklahoma, which The Oklahoman consistently and vehemently defends. more>>>
  
  
• 16 July 2001 - 'Moral certainty' elusive in Harjo case
  Oklahomans opposed to the death penalty will be protesting the scheduled execution of Jerald Harjo on Tuesday evening. Harjo, a Seminole Native American of questionable mental capacity, was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the 1988 murder of Ruth Porter. Mrs. Porter's death was tragic and violent. more>>>
  
  
• 14 July 2001 - Killer to die at OSP
  Teachers and staff who worked at Sasakwa Schools remember Jan. 16, 1988, very well. But they remember the 18th - a Monday - even better. That was the day they took time out of their busy schedules to comfort and console students who learned a beloved school secretary would no longer be there. more>>>
  
  
• 13 July 2001 - Execution date set for convicted killer
  OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals scheduled a Sept. 4 execution date Friday for a man who kidnapped and murdered a Tecumseh banker in 1983. Attorney General Drew Edmondson said Alvie James Hale Jr., 52, kidnapped William Jeffrey Perry, 24, from his home in Tecumseh and made a series of phone calls to Perry’s parents in which he demanded $350,000 in ransom. Perry’s parents ran the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Tecumseh. more>>>
  
  
• 11 July 2001 - Mental status cited in sentencing hearing
  McALESTER -- Convicted killer Sammy Van Woudenberg is mentally incompetent and shouldn't be executed at this time, according to his attorneys and the state attorney general's office. more>>>
  
  
• 10 July 2001 - Jerald is moved to Deathwatch
  We believe that Jerald was moved to the "Deathwatch" cell to spend the last seven days before his execution under close supervision with no contact with other inmates. more>>>
  
  
• 7 July 2001 - Department of Corrections pharmacy will provide drugs
  The Oklahoma Corrections Department has found a new source of drugs for executions after a hospital stopped selling the lethal combination to the state agency, a corrections spokesman said Friday. more>>>
  
  
• 6 July 2001 - Hospital stops sales of execution drugs
  McALESTER -- The state Corrections Department's sole provider of drugs used in executions said it will no longer sell the chemicals to the state, prompting corrections officials to find another source before Oklahoma's next scheduled execution. more>>>
  
  
• 19 June 2001 - No clemency from hearing
  As yet unconfirmed reports suggest that Jerald has waived his clemency hearing. There are no other clemency hearing scheduled at the present time.
  
  
• 23 May 2001 - Execution date set
  The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set an execution date for Jerald Wayne Harjo. more>>>
  
  
• 15 May 2001 - Top court denies inmate's appeal
  Attorney General Drew Edmondson on Monday asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals to set an execution date for Jerald Wayne Harjo. more>>>
  
  
• 22 June 2000 - Death sentence appeal rejected - Conviction upheld in woman's killing
  DENVER - An appeals court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of killing a Seminole County woman in 1988. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that Jerald Wayne Harjo had received a fair trial for the murder of Ruth Porter, 64, who lived near Sasakwa. more>>>
  
  
• 27 Sep 1988 - Jury Recommends Death Sentence
  WEWOKA A Seminole County District Court jury has recommended that convicted murderer Gerald Wayne Harjo, 26, of Sasakwa be executed by lethal drug injection. Assistant District Attorney Joe Wilson said jurors deliberated almost two hours late Friday before assessing the death penalty for Harjo. He had been convicted earlier Friday of the mutilation slaying of a Sasakwa elementary school secretary. more>>>
  
  
• 24 Sep 1988 - Sasakwa Man Convicted In Slaying of Secretary
  SASAKWA Gerald Wayne Harjo, 26, of Sasakwa was convicted Friday of the slaying of an elementary school secretary, but was acquitted of first-degree rape. A Seminole County District Court jury deliberated more than two hours in finding Harjo guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree burglary, and burglary and larceny of an automobile. more>>>
  
  
• 3 May 1988 - Man Faces Death Trial
  WEWOKA Jerald Wayne Harjo, 26, of Sasakwa was ordered Monday to stand trial in the mutilation sex-slaying of an elderly elementary school secretary. Special District Judge Joseph Wrigley ruled at Harjo's preliminary hearing that sufficient evidence existed to warrant his trial on first-degree murder, rape, car theft and burglary charges. more>>>
  
  
• 20 Jan 1988 - Suspect Charged in Sasakwa Murder
  SASAKWA A suspect in the brutal mutilation sex-slaying of an elderly elementary school secretary was charged with first-degree murder here Tuesday, authorities said. Jerald Wayne Harjo, 26, of Sasakwa is accused of strangling and suffocating Ruth Porter early Sunday at her rural home north of Sasakwa. more>>>