DL Jones was executed by the State of Ohio for the murder of Stanley Buck
According to court documents DL Jones was in a bar and was asked to coverup his gun. Instead he would pull it out and shot it at the waitress and hit someone else. DL Jones would then fatally shoot Stanley Buck and injure his son
DL Jones would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
DL Jones would be executed by lethal injection on February 1 2001
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When Was DL Jones Executed
DL Jones was executed on February 1 2001
DL Jones Case
Fried chicken. In 1979, he ate a meal of fried chicken and shot three people, killing one. Thursday he ate a meal of fried chicken and died himself, executed for a murder he had committed more than 21 years before. D.L. “Wayne” Jones Jr. was pronounced dead at Oklahoma State Penitentiary at 9:16 Thursday night.
Jones, 61, was executed for killing 48-year-old Stanley Buck Sr. at the Wichita Lounge in Lawton in 1979. He also shot 40-year-old Betty Strain, a woman he had been at the bar with, and 19-year-old Stanley Buck Jr. Strain and Buck Jr. survived their wounds. The single shot beneath Strain’s right breast forced doctors to remove her spleen. The three shots that hit Buck Jr. left him partially paralyzed. Jones was the eighth Oklahoma death row inmate to be executed this year and had, at the time of his execution, been on death row longer than any other inmate.
“I just don’t think that’s right,” Buck Jr. said as he stood outside of the prison shortly before the execution. “Nobody should have the right to outlive their victims by so many years.” Several people in the witness room of the execution chamber smiled grimly at Jones’ last words. “Well, I guess I’m going to get out of here before something bad happens,” he said. “So long. I guess that’s it. So long.” He blew out several large breaths as the lethal mixture of drugs entered his body, then lay still; a large, aging and balding man whose thick glasses reflected the fluorescent lights of the ceiling.
Less than an hour before Jones’ execution began Buck Jr. said he felt the last meal Jones had requested was a not-so-subtle attempt to rub his face in the murder. “He ordered the same thing, like ‘I remember doing it, I’m just not going to let nobody know,’” Buck Jr. said. “That’s the exact same thing he left behind there. My father offered him chicken for dinner. When all was said and done, there were eight pieces of chicken left, some rolls and two soft drinks. “I feel like that’s him saying ‘I remember, I just don’t want nobody else to know it.’ That’s the exact meal my father and I offered him when he started shooting. So I hope he enjoyed his chicken.”
At trial, Jones claimed he did not remember the shooting since he was in a blackout caused by mixing alcohol with prescription drugs. The jury rejected that argument based on testimony from prosecution witnesses, including a neurologist and another doctor who said such a blackout from the particular drug Jones mentioned and the amount of alcohol he had consumed was “highly unlikely.” In addition, other witnesses who had been in the bar at the time of the shooting, said Jones had appeared “…very calm, cool, collected.”
According to court documents, on Aug. 14, 1979 patrons of the Wichita Lounge in Lawton were eating Church’s Chicken. As Jones sat on a barstool drinking beer, the bartender went around and began wiping the tables and bar where people had been eating. Royce Linker, the bartender, later testified Jones was sitting with his right leg crossed over his left. As she drew near him, she said, she could see a revolver sticking out of the top of his boot. “I walked up to him in a very nice way and I said “Sir, would you mind putting your Levi leg down? Your gun’s showing,” Linker testified. Jones told her to “shut your mouth or I’ll blow your head off.”
Seconds later he said he planned to kill everyone in the bar, then swung around on the bar stool, pulled the pistol and began firing. Linker dived to the floor and hid behind the end of the bar. Betty Strain was hit below her right breast. She staggered out the door of the lounge and into another club nearby. Jones asked Stanley Buck Sr. and Jr., who had been playing pool, what they were doing at the lounge. “I just came down to play pool with my dad,” Buck Jr. replied. Jones shot him.
“It felt like (the bullet) ripped off my throat,” Buck Jr. testified at Jones’ trial. Jones also shot Buck Sr. and mocked the sounds the injured man made, according to testimony given in court. “Aren’t you dead?” Jones asked, rhetorically. He then answered his own question. “You’re dead.” He shot Buck Sr. again. According to testimony given at trial, Jones then turned to Buck Jr. and mocked him. “If I let you live, you’ll tell the police won’t you?” he asked. Jones raised the pistol and shot Buck Jr. again. He then looked around the bar and said “Now that I’ve killed every son-of-a-bitch here, I guess I’ll get me another beer.” Buck Jr. managed to stagger away from the bar and to a nearby fruit stand where he motioned bystanders to call police. He could not talk because of his wounds. An emergency tracheotomy saved his life.
According to court documents, Lawton police arrested Jones as he parked his pickup truck in his driveway. The pistol was on the front seat of the truck. Jones was the 123rd Oklahoma inmate executed since statehood.
