Kenneth Turrentine was executed by the State of Oklahoma for four murders
According to court documents Kenneth Turrentine thought his girlfriend was cheating on him so he would murder her Anita Louise Richardson, 39, and Richardson’s children, Tina L. Pennington, 22, and Martise D. Richardson, 13. Turrentine would then confront his sister Avon Stevenson, 48, for not telling him that Richardson was cheating on him and when she laughed he would fatally shoot her
Kenneth Turrentine would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Kenneth Turrentine would be executed by lethal injection on August 11 2005
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When Was Kenneth Turrentine Executed
Kenneth Turrentine was executed on August 11 2005
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The frail elderly woman had already buried a daughter and now her son, the killer, lay on a gurney in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary saying his last words. “I love you all,” Kenneth Eugene Turrentine said, trying to lift his head to see where Dorothy Vinson sat. “You all be strong.” “I love you,” Vinson cried back before falling into the low sobs that filled the death chamber as Turrentine was executed Thursday evening.
The 52-year-old was put to death for the murder of his estranged girlfriend, Anita Richardson, 39, during a 1994 shooting rampage in Tulsa that also left her children and Turrentine’s own sister dead.
Vinson had asked the Pardon and Parole Board a week ago to spare her son’s life, but the board refused and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Turrentine’s final appeal an hour before he received a lethal mix of drugs. “I’ve always maintained I’ve been innocent of the crime charged,” Turrentine said when asked if he had anything he wanted to say. He said his 14th Amendment rights to due process had been denied.
Turrentine had said he’d been using alcohol and antidepressants at the time of the killings, and in previous appeals had argued the jury should have been allowed to consider convicting on a lesser offense because of diminished mental capacity.
Prosecutors said Turrentine believed Richardson was seeing other men and that his sister was helping her deceive him. He shot his sister, 48-year-old Avon Stevenson, at her home before going to Richardson’s home and killing her. Turrentine, who called 911 after the shootings, was convicted and sentenced to death as well for the killings of Richardson’s 13-year-old son, Martise, and her 22-year-old daughter Tina Pennington. But a federal appeals court last year threw out those convictions because of a judge’s error during the trial. Turrentine received a no-parole life term for his sister’s slaying.
Jerry Richardson, who was separated from his wife Anita at the time, said the deaths brought years of suffering. He said the pain hits when he meets young men who are the age his son, an aspiring basketball player, would have been had he lived. Richardson said he didn’t agree with Turrentine’s statement of innocence but said he had forgiven him. “I hope he made peace with God,” Richardson said.
Family members remembered Ms. Richardson as fun-loving and a joy to be around. Pennington had been born blind and mentally disabled but Richardson said he encouraged her in her dreams of becoming a teacher. Martise’s aunt, Teresa Youngblood, called him a quiet and smart boy “who loved no one more than his mother.”
Prosecutors contended the killings were calculated. They argued that Turrentine obtained a .22-caliber pistol from his ex-wife the morning of the murders and shot all four victims in the head.
Turrentine’s eyes flickered as the lethal mix of drugs began to flow. He let out five deep breaths and then was still. He was pronounced dead three minutes later at 6:10 p.m. When it was over, his mother cried, “Let me get out of here,” but paused just before she left the death chamber. She placed her hand on the window that separated her from the room where her son’s body lay and tearfully patted it.
Turrentine was the 159th Oklahoma inmate put to death at the McAlester prison.
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