Richard Rojem executed after decades on death row
The year with the most executions worldwide in ten years
According to Amnesty International, 2023 was the deadliest year for executions in nearly a decade, with a 30% increase worldwide.
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McALESTER – Oklahoma held its second execution of 2024 on Thursday, putting to death a convicted child murderer who had spent nearly 40 years on death row.
Richard Norman Rojem Jr. was executed for stabbing his former stepdaughter to death. It was the 13th execution since the state reinstated the death penalty in October 2021 after a hiatus of more than six years.
At 10:16 a.m., Rojem was pronounced dead at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary after a lethal injection. He was 66 years old. He had not requested a last-minute reprieve.
According to the Oklahoma State Department of Corrections, he served longer on death row than any other inmate.
He was also one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the country, largely due to his two successful appeals against his conviction. He was convicted again in 2003 and 2007, and was not able to exhaust his appeals until 2017.
Rojem was also the last person sentenced to death in Oklahoma who maintained his innocence until the end, despite considerable evidence against him.
What you should know about the murder case
The victim, Layla Dawn Cummings, was 7 years old. She was abducted from an Elk City apartment late on July 6 or early on July 7, 1984, while her mother was working at a McDonald’s restaurant. Photos from the crime scene show her doll on her bed. Her brother, then 9 years old, testified at his 1985 trial that “Rick” was in the apartment at the time of her abduction.
On the morning of July 7, a farmer found her body in a ploughed field near Burns Flat. She had been raped and stabbed to death.
Rojem, then 26, was living in Burns Flat at the time. He married the victim’s mother, Mindy Cummings, while serving time in prison in Michigan for sex offenses against two teenagers, court records show. She was the sister of his cellmate. He came to Oklahoma after being paroled in 1982.
He and Mindy Cummings had been divorced for about two months at the time of the murder. He had sought a reconciliation.
The Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole voted 5-0 on June 17 to deny Rojem clemency. That vote meant Gov. Kevin Stitt could not commute his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Rojem became a Zen Buddhist in prison and was known to his other followers as Daiji, according to an information package his lawyers presented to the parole board.
For his last meal, he ordered two small double cheese and double pepperoni pizzas from Little Caesars and two tubs of vanilla ice cream. He also asked for a bottle of Vernors Ginger Ale.
Next up is Emmanuel Littlejohn, who was sentenced to death for the murder of an Oklahoma City supermarket owner in 1992. His execution date has not yet been set, but will likely take place in September.
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