Dion Smallwood was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of Lois Frederick
According to court documents Dion Smallwood was mad at his ex-girlfriends mother for breaking them up. Smallwood would go to her home where he would hit Lois Frederick with a croquet mallet, put her into a car and then set the car on fire
Dion Smallwood would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Dion Smallwood would be executed by lethal injection on January 18 2001
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When Was Dion Smallwood Executed
Dion Smallwood was executed on January 18 2001
Dion Smallwood Case
A man who beat his ex-girlfriend’s adopted mother with a croquet mallet, threw her in the trunk of a car and then burned her alive was executed Thursday night. Dion Athanasius Smallwood, 31, was pronounced dead at 9:09 after receiving a lethal dose of drugs in the death chamber at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Smallwood was the fourth person executed in Oklahoma this month, with four more executions scheduled in the next two weeks.
Smallwood was convicted of murdering Lois Frederick, 68, on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 1992, after forcing his way into her Oklahoma City home. Acquaintances said Smallwood resented Frederick for trying to keep him away from her adopted daughter, Terri Jo Frederick. Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin and the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon denied applications for an execution delay made by Smallwood and his attorneys. Terri Frederick was at the prison with her biological sister, Mone Moody, to watch the execution.
At Smallwood’s murder trial, Frederick testified he had attacked her several times throughout their relationship, once even putting a gun in her mouth and busting out one of her teeth. She said he warned her several times that if she ever broke up with him, he would kill her family and friends. In an 11-page handwritten letter to the Oklahoma clemency board, Terri Frederick urged the state not to forgive the man she once loved. “I remember my mom begging me to leave him as she was so scared that one day he was going to end up killing me,” she wrote. Frederick wrote that she has suffered depression and feelings of guilt since her mother’s death and has attempted suicide several times.
According to testimony at Smallwood’s trial, he entered Lois Frederick’s home and began fighting with her about Terri, who had recently moved out of the apartment she and Smallwood had shared and filed a protective order against him. After smashing Frederick’s phone and striking her, Smallwood beat her over the head with a croquet mallet. He then threw her limp body in the trunk of a car that Frederick forbade her daughter to use, fearing she would go see Smallwood. After driving around for several hours, Smallwood bought some gas, parked the car in a rural area, then doused and ignited it.