Harold McElmurry was executed by the State of Oklahoma for a double murder
According to court documents Harold McElmurry would rob and beat to death Robert and Vivian Pendley. Harold had previously worked for the elderly couple
Harold McElmurry would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Harold McElmurry would be executed by lethal injection on July 29 2003
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Harold McElmurry FAQ
When Was Harold McElmurry Executed
Harold McElmurry was executed on July 29 2003
Harold McElmurry Case
They met their killer because they wanted to see the sunset. But Tuesday night, the man who killed the elderly McIntosh County couple died himself, the 14th inmate executed in Oklahoma this year. Harold Loyd McElmurry III was pronounced dead at 6:06 p.m., executed for the Aug. 1, 1999, murders of Robert and Vivian Pendley at the couple’s Lenna home.
“They were good, hard working, honest people,” Diana Pendley said of her parents-in-law. She, her husband Bob, son Robert and Robert’s wife Sheila witnessed the execution Tuesday night. Murder victim Robert Pendley had survived many things in his life, from fighting in the Battle of the Bulge with the 87th Infantry Division in World War II to surviving a crippling fall more than three decades later. Robert and Vivian Pendley lived much of their lives in Eufaula, but in the 1970s they decided to build a retirement home in Lenna some miles west of the city where he ran a garage and she worked in a department store. In 1976, while working on the second story of the house, Robert Pendley fell and broke his back, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. That’s when Vivian quit working at Sharp’s Department Store in Eufaula, a job she’d held for 25 years, to stay home with her husband. Both were then in their 50s.
The veteran didn’t let the fact he could no longer use his legs stop him, however. He worked to develop his upper body strength until he could move himself to and from his wheelchair unassisted. “He could lift himself out of his wheelchair onto his riding lawnmower,” Diana Pendley recalled. “They had a recliner in the living room and he’d lift himself into it to watch a little TV at night.”
Robert Pendley would hang tools from his riding mower and go around the couple’s property trimming and cleaning. Vivian Pendley also spent a lot of time transforming the property into what members of the Eufaula High School class of 1963, who once held a reunion there, said “looked like a park.” “Mom was just a workhorse. She was going all the time,” Diana Pendley said. “Their home was their pride and joy. Mom and Dad both took great pride in their yard.” Gradually, the couple cleared the land around their house until the yard alone encompassed several acres.
The couple first met their killers while having more yard work done. In 1999, Robert Pendley was 80 years old and Vivian was 75. Although the couple remained active, both for work and for pleasure – once riding a four-wheeled all terrain vehicle the 24 miles from Lenna to Hanna – there were some things they just could no longer do. Some weeks before they died, the couple hired a man to clear some land so they could see the sunset better. At one point the man came to work along with two people who had been living with him, Harold and Vickie McElmurry, who asked if they could help. The Pendleys put them to work as well.
Several weeks after the work was done, the McElmurrys returned. According to court documents, they spent two days walking through the woods to reach the Pendley home. Once there, the McElmurrys visited with the elderly couple, then retreated to the woods. Harold McElmurry testified in a preliminary hearing that he and his wife “shot up” with methamphetamine while trying to decide whether to rob and kill the Pendleys or simply rob them. Court documents indicate the McElmurrys returned to the home, finding the elderly couple in the garage. While Vickie McElmurry lured Vivian Pendley away, Harold McElmurry attacked Robert Pendley, stabbing him multiple times with a pair of scissors before beating him with garden instruments and a pipe. Vivian Pendley was also beaten and stabbed. The McElmurrys fled with two pistols, $70 cash and the Pendleys’ 12-year-old Oldsmobile, crossing the border into Mexico for several days. They were captured when crossing back into the United States near Laredo, Texas, and returned to Oklahoma.
McElmurry waived his appeals, asking for an execution date. In a letter to the attorney general’s office dated June 16, 2002, McElmurry wrote “There is no question as to my guilt and I feel competent to make this decision.” Vickie McElmurry is serving two life sentences for her part in the crime.
Tuesday Harold McElmurry raised his head as the blinds to the state’s execution chamber rose. He gave a perfunctory glance at the four reporters gathered in the witness room, then seemed to dismiss them as he returned his head to the gurney on which he was strapped. “I’d like to say I’m sorry to the Pendley family,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “I hope they can forgive me.” Less than two minutes later he was dead.
The murder victims’ grandson said he believed McElmurry’s apology was sincere. “I forgave Harold about three weeks ago,” Robert Pendley Jr. said after the execution. “It was kind of a hard thing to do, just knowing the brutality of the crime he had committed. “I felt like with Harold making the decision he had made tonight (waiving all remaining appeals), I felt like I needed to do that.”
http://www.mcalesternews.com/articles/2003/07/30/news/local_news/news03.txt
