Lewis Gilbert was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of Roxanne Ruddell
According to court documents Lewis Gilbert and a teenage accomplice came across Roxanne Ruddell who was fishing alone. The woman was forced into the woods where she would be robbed and fatally shot
During the same crime spree Lewis Gilbert would murder three other people: Port Washington, Ohio, woman, Ruth Lucille Loader (79) and William Brewer (86) and Flossie Mae Brewer (76) near Kingdom City, Mo. In the Brewer murders he would be convicted and sentenced to death in Missouri
Lewis Gilbert would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death in Oklahoma
Lewis Gilbert would be executed by lethal injection on July 1 2003
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When Was Lewis Gilbert Executed
Lewis Gilbert was executed on July 1 2003
Lewis Gilbert Case
An Ohio man was executed Tuesday for killing a security guard during a deadly multistate crime spree. Lewis Eugene Gilbert was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. after receiving a lethal mix of drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Gilbert, of Newcomerstown, Ohio, had also been sentenced to death in Missouri for killing William and Flossie Brewer, and had confessed to killing Ruth Lucille Loader in Ohio, authorities said.
Fourteen friends and family members of slain security guard Roxanne Ruddell and the Brewers witnessed the execution. After it was over, Ruddell’s husband, Eddie Ruddell, said he finally had closure. The Brewers said they did, too. “It brought some relief to both our families,” Eddie Ruddell said. “Right now he’s up there having to testify to what he did to God. We know where our loved ones are — they’re with God.”
Gilbert’s final statement was mostly inaudible, but he thanked God several times. “This is weird, but I’m actually looking forward to seeing God. I’m coming home,” Gilbert said. “Thank you, God.”
Cleveland County District Judge Tom Lucas sentenced Gilbert to death by lethal injection for the Sept. 3, 1994, slaying of off-duty security guard Roxanne “Roxy” Ruddell at Lake Stanley Draper in Oklahoma City. In addition to a death penalty recommendation, jurors recommended convictions on kidnapping and robbery. On those charges, Lucas handed down two consecutive life sentences and fines totaling $20,000, the maximum punishment in both cases. The State Court of Criminal Appeals later upheld the convictions.
Gilbert and then-16-year-old Eric Elliott, were arrested near Santa Fe, N.M., about three days after Ruddell’s body was found at the lake. According to testimony in the trial in Norman, Ruddell was fishing alone near Point 6 when the two men spotted her. They took her to a nearby wooded area and forced her to sit under a tree as they rummaged through her purse, took her keys and stole $2 or $3. Ruddell told the pair she wouldn’t call police if they didn’t hurt her, but Gilbert reportedly thought she was lying and grew angry, authorities said. Elliot tied Ruddell’s hands and Gilbert shot her three times in the head and once in the back of the neck. The truck was found near a culvert in New Mexico where Gilbert and Elliott were discovered sleeping.
Although Gilbert’s trial was restricted to evidence surrounding Ruddell’s death, the killing was part of a cross-country crime spree that began in Ohio in August 1994. An elderly Port Washington, Ohio, woman, Ruth Lucille Loader, was discovered to be gone from her home, and her departure didn’t look planned. A side door had been open, a purse that had been rifled lay on the kitchen table, a dusty shoeprint was visible on the doorstep, and the phone cord dangled where it had been jerked from the wall. Her car also was missing. In police interviews after his arrest, Gilbert confessed to having killed Loader. Her body has not been found, and Gilbert was never tried for the crime.
Loader’s car was found abandoned in a pasture near William and Flossie Brewer’s farmhouse near Kingdom City, Mo. Relatives of the Brewers found the couple in a basement wood room. Both had been shot in the head. Gilbert was convicted of murdering the Brewers and handed another death sentence in Missouri. In a separate Cleveland County trial, Elliott also was convicted of Ruddell’s murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Gilbert’s attorneys in Missouri worked until the last minute Tuesday trying to get the execution stayed. The U.S. Supreme Court returned a request for a stay of execution to a lower court for consideration. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied the request and it returned to the U.S. Supreme Court, which then rejected it. The execution was delayed for about an hour.
Gilbert is the 148th inmate executed in Oklahoma, and the 10th this year. For his last meal, Gilbert dined on a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream, a box of assorted cones and a box of Whoppers.
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