John Romano and David Woodruff were executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of Roger Safarty
According to court documents John Romano and David Woodruff would go over to the home of Roger Safarty who would be beaten, stabbed five times and strangled. The two would rob the home before fleeing
John Romano and David Woodruff would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
John Romano would also be convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Lloyd Thompson during a July 19, 1986, robbery in Oklahoma City
John Romano would be executed by lethal injection on January 29 2002
David Woodruff would be executed by lethal injection on January 31 2002
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When Was John Romano Executed
John Romano was executed on January 29 2002
When Was David Woodruff Executed
David Woodruff was executed on January 31 2002
John Romano Case
A former Marine was executed Thursday for the 1985 robbery and killing of an Oklahoma City man.David Wayne Woodruff, 42, was pronounced dead about two minutes after lethal drugs began flowing into his veins.Before the execution began, he lay on the gurney and made unintelligible noises. He nodded to his attorneys and slightly twitched his head before he was asked for his last words.”We’re not here for a social event; we’re here for a killing,” Woodruff said quickly in a high voice. “Name’s David Wayne Woodruff, W-O-O-D-R-U-F-F. Let’s get this show on the road.”
He then clenched his eyes shut and exhaled deeply several times, stirring the hairs in his long, goatee beard. His barrel chest stopped rising about a minute after the injection began. He was pronounced dead at 9:12 p.m.
Twyla Alvarez, the only child of victim Roger Sarfaty, said she had hoped to hear some words of remorse.
“He demonstrated what I heard about him full-force,” Alvarez said. “I will say it took me by surprise, that he could be so unconcerned.”
“He’s had the same attitude the whole time,” said Tommy Thompson, the nephew of a second man, Lloyd Thompson, killed by Woodruff and co-defendant John Joseph Romano.
Both Thompson and Alvarez offered condolences to Woodruff’s relatives, saying they were crime victims, too.
“Seeing what he said just reaffirmed my belief that we have a need for capital punishment,” said Sarfaty’s nephew, Jay Clark, who also witnessed Woodruff’s death.
But Alvarez, a crime analyst for a suburban Boston police department, said the executions have strengthened her convictions against the death penalty.
In a statement before the execution, she said watching Romano die on Tuesday had left her empty.
“John Romano was dead. What, exactly, had been improved by that fact? My father is still dead, and the pain and suffering he endured are no less than before Romano died. Moreover, John Romano is no longer able to suffer the guilt and remorse I hope he felt every day that he lived behind bars. I don’t see that anything has been gained.”
After Woodruff’s death, she said she felt the same way, even though Woodruff made no pretense of feeling remorse.
“He got off too easy,” she said.
Woodruff’s execution, Oklahoma’s second of the year, drew no protesters at the penitentiary’s main gate.
Police and prosecutors said Woodruff and Romano picked Sarfaty as a victim because of the jewelry he traded. The killers also believed Sarfaty and Lloyd Thompson carried cash because of bets they had seen the men place with a city gambling operation.
Woodruff was also convicted of solicitation to commit murder after an informant told police Woodruff asked him to kill everyone in an Edmond coin shop so they could rob it. Woodruff reportedly stopped at the last minute when he saw a police officer in the store.
