Michael Pennington was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of Bradley Grooms
According to court documents Michael Pennington was stationed at Fort Sill when he would go to a store and demanded money from the cashier Bradley Grooms. Grooms would be fatally shot after handing over the money
Michael Pennington would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Michael Pennington would be executed by lethal injection on July 19 2005
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When Was Michael Pennington Executed
Michael Pennington was executed on July 19 2005
Michael Pennington Case
Louise Grooms was at her Indiahoma home Tuesday night when her son’s killer received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Michael L. Pennington’s mother, wife and spiritual adviser were present in the small viewing room when three chemicals were injected into his arms via tubes coming from two holes in the wall behind his head.
Pennington, who changed his name while in prison to Sharief Imani Sallahdin, made snoring sounds before his head slowly cocked to his right and his eyes opened halfway. A prison doctor pronounced Sallahdin’s time of death as 6:10 p.m., approximately five minutes after the injections began.
“Mr. Pennington has taken so much from me,” Grooms said Monday, commenting on why she wouldn’t attend his execution in McAlester. “I don’t want him taking any more from me.”
Pennington was convicted in 1993 of shooting 7-Eleven clerk Bradley Thomas Grooms, 20, in the back at the Fort Sill Boulevard and Rogers Lane location. While the same company no longer occupies that location, the memories remain. James Principi, who was working with Bradley Grooms when Pennington shot him in the back, has refused media requests for interviews.
An associate of Principi said he has spent the past 13 years putting this event behind him and going forward with his life, despite the memories. “I’m glad that he survived,” Grooms said, noting that, while the event surely affected Principi, his family didn’t lose him. “With his surviving, that helped the police to identify Pennington.” Allison Carson, the Attorney General’s Victims’ Witness Coordinator, called Grooms at 6:13 p.m., informing her of Pennington’s official time of death. “It’s been a weird day,” Grooms said. “I have to call some friends in Florida. Maybe it’ll sink in by then.” The emotion in her voice betraying her, Grooms said, “He got options. He got to pick his last meal and all that stuff.”
Pennington’s options included addressing the witnesses. “No statement,” he said, when asked if he wished to make one, then he looked to his left toward his mother, wife and spiritual adviser and mouthed, “I love you.”
A saline wash, injected through a pair of intravenous lines flowing from two holes in the wall and ending in each arm, was followed by three drugs used to effect the execution sodium thiopental, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Each drug was punctuated by a shot of saline. Three executioners inject one drug each, in the order previously listed. Sodium thiopental causes unconsciousness. Vecuronium bromide stops respiration and potassium chloride ceases heart functions. “I know it’s all clinical, but it’s not something you deal with everyday,” Grooms said, expressing her concern for those who witnessed the execution.
At a recent clemency hearing, Grooms said Pennington appeared apologetic but then filed a request for a stay of execution in which he alleged his race was the reason he was convicted and sentenced to death. Pennington was black. “That’s not it,” Grooms said, expressing hope that the execution would send a message. “It’s because you’re a killer. Once you have killed, what kind of a crime is lying? He’s a liar and a killer. He didn’t have to do this. You can’t get away with committing crimes.”
While an exact motive was never determined, the lead detective on Pennington’s case said it appeared that he entered the store at 5 a.m. Oct. 21, 1991, to rob it. He fired several rounds from a sawed-off shotgun he had purchased at Kmart. Bradley Grooms was shot in the back, at least one shot went into a cooler and several were fired at the cash register. After the initial gunshot, Principi hid in a bathroom, locking himself in. Pennington didn’t make off with any cash, police said. He flew out of Lawton and was arrested the next day in his hometown of Akron, Ohio.
Bradley Grooms was barely 20 years old when he was killed. “Bradley was 20 for two months and one week,” his mother said. “It’s like he’s still 19 to me.”