Charles Foster was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of Claude Wiley
According to court documents Charles Foster would get his wife to order groceries from Claude Wiley. When Wiley showed up he would be beaten to death with a baseball bat. Foster believed that his wife was having an affair with the seventy four year old man
Charles Foster was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Charles Foster was executed by lethal injection on May 25 2000
Charles Foster Photos
Charles Foster FAQ
When Was Charles Foster Executed
Charles Foster was executed on May 25 2000
Charles Foster Case
Charles Adrian Foster died while mouthing words of scripture as his death sentence was carried out early Thursday, 17 years after he murdered a Muskogee grocer. Foster, 51, had no last statement. He died four minutes after receiving a lethal mix of drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Donna Loggins said her family had been waiting ”17 years, one month and 24 days” for Foster’s execution for the murder of her uncle, 74-year-old Claude Wiley. ”Now that Foster will be executed, the Wiley-Ware family can now have some closure,” she said in a statement released before the execution.
Foster, who told a clemency board last month ”I am innocent,” nodded to his lawyer, friends and spiritual advisers who came to witness the execution on his behalf. Asked if he had a final statement, Foster said, ”No sir, I don’t.” He mouthed the words as a chaplain began reading Psalm 23. During another scripture that asked, ”Do you believe in God?” Foster replied, ”Yes.” He took three deep, gasping breaths as the drugs were administered, then fell still. He was pronounced dead at 12:16 a.m. Foster became the sixth inmate executed in Oklahoma this year. Four more executions are scheduled through July.
Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who tried Foster as Muskogee County district attorney, said robbery motivated the murder. Wiley had owned his neighborhood grocery store for decades and often delivered to the poor and infirm. He was making a delivery to the Foster home April 1, 1983, at the request of Foster’s wife. Foster was waiting with a Louisville Slugger. He accused Wiley of ”trying to mess with my wife” before repeatedly smashing him with the bat. Investigators found blood on the walls and ceiling and parts of Wiley’s teeth throughout the home. Still breathing after the beating, Wiley later was stabbed three times in the chest. His body was discovered several days later in a wooded area about a mile from the Foster home.
Foster had sought to have the execution stayed, but the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final appeals Wednesday morning. ”There’s not a shadow of a doubt in my mind of his guilt,” Edmondson said.
Foster’s wife, Eula Mae Collins, testified that her husband asked her to call Wiley for a delivery and then waited behind a door with the bat. She pleaded guilty to a charge of accessory to the fact and served a short time in prison before her release in 1984. Collins was arrested in Fort Worth, Texas, 12 days after the murder. Foster fled when police approached the couple. He was arrested three months later in Cuero, Texas. A jury dismissed arguments that Collins, the only eyewitness to the crime, was the actual murderer, Edmondson said. ”She did not ask for a plea agreement. She did not ask for leniency,” Edmondson said. ”All she ever asked for was to protect her from Charles.”