Oklahoma to execute man convicted of child murder and rape

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma plans to execute on Thursday a man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 7-year-old girl in 1984.

Richard Rojem, 66, has exhausted all legal remedies and is scheduled to receive a lethal injection with three different drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

During a pardon hearing earlier this month, Rojem denied responsibility for the murder of his former stepdaughter, Layla Cummings. The child’s mutilated and partially clothed body was discovered in a western Oklahoma field near the town of Burns Flat. She had been stabbed to death.

“I was not a good person for the first half of my life, I don’t deny that,” Rojem said, handcuffed and wearing a red prison uniform, as he appeared before the state Board of Pardons and Parole via video link from prison. “But I went to prison. I learned my lesson and put all that behind me.”

The panel unanimously denied Rojem’s request for clemency. Rojem’s attorney, Jack Fisher, said there are no pending appeals that would prevent his execution.

Rojem was previously convicted of raping two teenagers in Michigan. Prosecutors allege he was angry at Layla Cummings for reporting sexual abuse to him, leading to his divorce from the girl’s mother and his renewed prison sentence for violating his probation.

“For many years, the shock of her loss and the knowledge of the sheer fear, pain and suffering she endured at the hands of that soulless monster was more than I could imagine surviving day to day,” Layla’s mother, Mindy Lynn Cummings, wrote to the parole board.

Rojem’s lawyers argued that DNA evidence taken from the girl’s fingernails did not link him to the crime and asked the pardon board to recommend letting Rojem live and commuting his sentence to life without parole.

“If my client’s DNA is not there, he should not be convicted,” Fisher said.

Prosecutors say that in addition to DNA evidence, many other pieces of evidence were used in Rojem’s conviction, including a fingerprint discovered outside the girl’s apartment on a mug from a bar Rojem left shortly before the girl was abducted. A condom wrapper found near the girl’s body can also be linked to a used condom found in Rojem’s bedroom, prosecutors said.

A Washita County jury convicted Rojem in 1985 after deliberating for just 45 minutes. His previous death sentences were overturned twice by appeals courts due to procedural errors. A Custer County jury finally sentenced him to death for a third time in 2007.

Oklahoma has executed more prisoners per capita than any other U.S. state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Twelve executions have been carried out in Oklahoma since the death penalty was reinstated in October 2021. There had previously been a nearly six-year hiatus following problems with executions in 2014 and 2015.

Opponents of the death penalty had planned to hold vigils on Thursday in front of the governor’s mansion in Oklahoma City and the Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester.