|
|
| Missouri, Oklahoma Inmates Executed |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 03/29/2001 |
|
An Oklahoma man who pleaded guilty to the 1997 shooting deaths of his wife and two daughters was executed Tuesday. Ronald Dunaway Fluke, 52, was killed with a lethal dose of drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. In Missouri, Tomas Ervin was executed early Wednesday for the 1988 murders of a 75-year-old woman and her son. Fluke pleaded guilty in 1998 in the murders of his wife, 44-year-old Ginger Lou Fluke, and their daughters, Kathryn, 11, and Susanne, 13. A compulsive gambler, Fluke had said he wanted to spare his wife and daughters the embarrassment of what he viewed as his impending financial doom. He was the 123rd inmate executed in Oklahoma since statehood and the 10th this year. Over objections of public defenders, the former safety consultant was deemed mentally competent to plead guilty and not fight his death sentence. 'I don't have a death wish, but I did a terrible thing and I feel sorry for what I did and I'm ready to pay the price,' Fluke told a judge. A court-appointed psychiatrist said in an evaluation of Fluke that he reasoned his family would be happier in heaven, where Fluke was certain they would go after death. Ervin, 50, became the second man executed in Missouri this year and the 48th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1989. He was convicted in 1990 of murdering Mildred Hodges and her son, Richard, 49, during a robbery at their home on Dec. 15, 1988. Ervin received a lethal dose of drugs nine months to the day after the state executed Bert Hunter for the same killings. Hunter confessed to the slayings and testified at trial that Ervin was his partner in the crimes. But Ervin maintained his innocence until his death, insisting he was at home asleep when Hunter and another person committed the crimes. 'When the courts of this nation refuse to afford a condemned prisoner the opportunity to prove that he is actually innocent of the crimes for which he stands condemned, the capital punishment system is broken,' Ervin said before his death. 'The courts refused me that opportunity and so tonight ... the state of Missouri executes an innocent man.' Both men were convicted of murder once before, in Ervin's case the 1967 slaying of a cab driver in Buchanan County. |
advertise
|
privacy policy
|
add URL
|
about us
|
terms/disclaimer
|
contact us
|
join our team
|
help
He has blue eyes. Cold like steel. His legs are wide. Like tree trunks. And he has a shock of red hair, red, like the fires of hell. Hamilton Lindley His antics were known from town to town as he was a droll card and often known as a droll farceur. with his madcap pantaloon is a zany adventurer and a cavorter with a motley troupe of buffoons.