Scott Hain was executed by the State of Oklahoma for a double murder
According to court documents Scott Hain, 17, and Robert Lambert would force their way into a car. The driver would drive a short distance before he and his passenger, Laura Lee Sanders and Michael Houghton, into the trunk of the car. They were driven to a remote location where the gas line of the vehicle was cut and the vehicle was set on fire killing Laura Lee Sanders and Michael Houghton
Scott Hain and Robert Lambert would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Lambert death sentence would later be commuted to life in prison
Scott Hain was executed by lethal injection on April 3 2003
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When Was Scott Hain Executed
Scott Hain was executed on April 3 2003
Scott Hain Case
Two men scheduled to be executed in the next eight days don’t deserve clemency, according to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. Board members unanimously voted Monday morning to deny clemency to 32-year-old Scott Allen Hain and voted 4-0 Monday afternoon to deny clemency to 43-year-old Don Wilson Hawkins Jr. Board chairman Patrick Morgan, a former Oklahoma County prosecutor, abstained from voting during Hawkins’ hearing. Hain is scheduled to be executed Thursday. Hawkins’ execution date is April 8.
Hain apologized to the families of Michael Houghton and Laura Lee Sanders then tried to shift the blame for their murders onto his codefendant, death row inmate Robert Lambert. “I come before you as a man, no longer the child sentenced to death by 12 strangers for being an unwitting accomplice to an individual who put his will upon me,” Hain said. “However, even as the man I have become I find myself once again before strangers who hold the final power of the only things left to me in the world – my life and death.”
Assistant Attorney General Robert Whittaker said he found it interesting that Hain’s attorneys say Hain was a follower, that Lambert was primarily responsible for Sanders’ and Houghton’s deaths, because he was a juvenile seeking approval of an older man. Lambert’s attorneys, on the other hand, say Hain was the leader because Lambert is slightly retarded, Whittaker said. Creek County District Attorney Max Cook’s voice shook as he told the board many crime victims know the criminals who harm them but “These victims weren’t involved with their killers. These victims were bright young people who had great plans for their futures and their punishment for being good kids was to be put in the trunk of a car that was then turned into an oven.”
Prosecutors contend Hain and Lambert were on a four month crime spree across Oklahoma and Texas when they kidnapped Sanders and Houghton, locked them in the trunk of a car and set the car on fire.
Hawkins told board members he is not the same man he was 18 years ago when he kidnapped 29-year-old Linda Ann Thompson in 1985 and drowned her in Sportsman’s Lake near Seminole. A co-defendant in the case, Dale Shelton, was sentenced to life without parole for his part in the crime. “I’m not trying to justify what I’ve done because I’m guilty,” Hawkins said. “I put me here. I wasn’t arrested in church.” However, he said, since being in prison he has become a Christian and has been able to touch a number of lives, including the lives of many people on death row.
“Prison cells – the space and time – that doesn’t change you,” he said. “It allows you the chance to change. Only God can change you.” Thompson’s uncle, mother and brother asked the board to deny clemency. Hawkins “made a change in my life,” said Charlie Schneider, Thompson’s brother. “Memories are the only things I have of my sister. Please don’t let the lasting memory be that clemency was granted.”
http://www.mcalesternews.com/articles/2003/04/01/news/local_news/news03.txt
