Oklahoma has carried out the execution of a man convicted of killing his former girlfriend and her infant daughter nearly two decades ago.
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Raymond Johnson, 52, was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. on Thursday after receiving a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, according to prison officials.
Johnson had been sentenced to death for the June 2007 killings of Brooke Whitaker, 24, and her seven-month-old daughter, Kya Whitaker.
Fatal attack in Tulsa home
Prosecutors said Johnson and Whitaker were arguing at her home in Tulsa when the violence occurred.
According to court documents prepared for Johnson’s clemency hearing in April, Johnson repeatedly struck Whitaker with a metal claw hammer, fracturing her skull and causing more than 20 lacerations to her face and scalp. Despite her injuries, Whitaker remained conscious and pleaded with Johnson to spare her life and the life of her baby, who was asleep in another room.
“She begged him to call 911. She begged him to let her mom come get baby Kya. She begged him to think of her children,” prosecutors from the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office said in the clemency documents. Whitaker had three other children.
Authorities said Johnson then retrieved gasoline from a shed behind the home. Prosecutors said he poured fuel on Whitaker and inside the house before igniting a dish towel and throwing it at her before leaving the scene.
Whitaker died from head injuries and smoke inhalation, while her daughter died from severe burns.
Appeals and clemency request rejected
In a statement after the execution, Gentner Drummond described Johnson as “a cruel murderer who inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering on his victims.”
Johnson’s legal team did not file a final appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States seeking to halt the execution.
Earlier appeals had argued that Johnson’s arrest was unlawful, that police coerced a confession, and that his trial attorney conceded his guilt in Whitaker’s death without Johnson’s consent. Those arguments were rejected by the courts.
In April, the five-member Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board unanimously denied Johnson’s request for clemency.
During that hearing, Johnson apologized to the victims’ family and said he had changed during his years in prison.
“I apologize. No excuses, no justifications, a sincere apology,” he said in an interview with the advocacy group Death Penalty Action.
Family sought execution to proceed
Members of Whitaker’s family urged officials to carry out the execution.
In a letter to the clemency board, Whitaker’s eldest daughter, Logan Kleck, said the execution would not erase years of loss but would bring an end to the pain caused by the case.
“Executing him will not give me my mom or sister back,” she wrote, adding that it would stop him from continuing to hurt the family.
Before the murders, Johnson had also served nine years of a 20-year sentence after a 1996 manslaughter conviction.
Johnson was the second inmate executed in Oklahoma this year and the 11th execution carried out in the United States in 2026.
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Adapted by ASEAN Now. Source 15 May 2026
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