Oklahoma executes man convicted of double murder
By Max Matza
The US state of Oklahoma has carried out its first execution for 2024, giving a lethal injection to a man convicted of a double murder.
Michael Dewayne Smith was 19 when he killed Janet Moore and Sarath Babu Pulluru during a drug-fuelled crime spree in Oklahoma City in 2002.
When asked if he had any last words, Smith, 41, said: “Nah, I’m good.”
He is the 12th person to be executed in Oklahoma since the state resumed carrying out death penalties in 2021.
The nearly seven-year hiatus came after a series of problems arose during executions.
In 2014, a condemned prisoner writhed in apparent pain for 43 minutes before dying from a heart attack. The next year, a prisoner being executed told witnesses “it feels like acid” and “my body is on fire”.
Smith’s murders were committed while he was already on the run for a shooting death a year earlier.
