Jay Neil was executed by the State of Oklahoma for four murders committed during a bank robbery
According to court documents Jay Neil and his accomplice would enter the First Bank of Chattanooga branch in Geronimo, Oklahoma. Neil would stab to death three people: 25-year-old bank teller Joyce Marie Tanner Mullenix, was stabbed 27 times and nearly decapitated during the robbery. Teller Jeri Annette Bowles, 19, was stabbed 14 times and her throat was cut. Branch manager Kay Bruno, 42, was stabbed 34 times and her throat was cut. Customer Robert Zeller, 33, was shot and killed during the robbery. Three others would be injured
Jay Neil would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Jay Neil would be executed by lethal injection on December 12 2002
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Jay Neil was executed on December 12 2002
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Jay Wesley Neill, who killed four people in one of Oklahoma’s deadliest bank robberies, became the sixth inmate put to death in Oklahoma this year on Thursday. Neill, 37, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Neill was executed for fatally stabbing three employees and fatally shooting a customer of the First Chattanooga Bank branch in Geronimo. He wounded three others before the Dec. 14, 1984, robbery was over.
Before the lethal injection was administered Neill, strapped to a gurney, craned forward looking into a camera that broadcast the execution to family members, and apologized. “I want everyone to know that I’m really sorry, not because I’m dying but for the horrible, horrible thing that I did,” said Neill, who became emotional as he spoke. “I hope it brings you comfort to know Robert Johnson wasn’t in that bank. I know you think he was, but he wasn’t.”
Johnson was Neill’s lover and co-defendant during their initial trial. Some speculated that Johnson, who was given a life without parole sentence in a new trial in 1992, was at the bank and helped Neill. As Neill gave his last statement his voice quivered and he complained of being dizzy. “Are they starting?” he asked.
As the lethal injection was administered, Neill prayed until he lost consciousness. His left shoulder twitched and the color drained from his face. Neill was pronounced dead about three minutes after the execution began at 6:15 p.m. “We got some justice tonight,” Calvin Bowles said. “He died like a coward, he was crying and asking for forgiveness. I walked into that bank and saw my daughter and the others butchered, he didn’t give them a chance to ask for the Lord for forgiveness.”
Bowles’ daughter, Jeri, was one of three women who were stabbed more than 15 times each and their throats cut during the robbery. Jeri Bowles, described by her mother as caring and nurturing, was called into work early the day of the robbery. Her father Calvin Bowles, had just dropped her off when Neill entered the bank and herded the three female employees into the back room of the bank.
He then stabbed them with a hunting knife, cutting so deep that Neill severed the ribs of his victims, court documents show. Jeri Bowles was stabbed 14 times and her throat was cut. Kay Bruno, 42, the manager of the bank, was stabbed 34 times and her throat was cut. Joyce Mullenix, 25, who was six months pregnant, was stabbed 27 times and nearly decapitated. Neill forced customers who trickled in after the robbery to get down on the floor next to the women and then he shot at them. He killed Robert Zeller, 33, but Bellen Robles, 15, Ruben Robles, 20, and Marilyn Roach 24, recovered from their wounds.
The crime rocked Geronimo, a town of about 960 near Lawton in southwestern Oklahoma. More than 1,700 people attended Jeri Bowles’ funeral, which was held in the town’s high school gym.
In March 1986, Neill appeared on the religious program “The 700 Club,” confessing to the crime and asking for forgiveness. “I’ve yet to come up with something that I know will make it easier for any of you,” Neill told victim’s family members as he testified in his 1992 trial. “I am sorry. It’s eating me and I believe that’s been part of my punishment. I just wish there was something I could say to make it better but there’s not.”
In Oklahoma City, six people were arrested on misdemeanor civil disobedience complaints during a protest at Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s office. Protester Wes Roberts said murder is the only crime that is duplicated by the state when an execution is carried out. “You don’t rape a raper, rob a robber or mug a mugger,” Roberts said. “That would be considered unconscionable.” Two more men are scheduled to die later this month.
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