Michael Roberts was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of Lula Brooks
According to court documents Michael Roberts would break into the home of eighty year old Lula Brooks who would be stabbed multiple times in the head and neck. Roberts would rob the home before fleeing
Michael Roberts was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Michael Roberts would be executed on February 10 2000 by lethal injection
Michael Roberts Photos
Michael Roberts FAQ
When Was Michael Roberts Executed
Michael Roberts was executed on February 10 2000
Michael Roberts Case
An Oklahoma City man who robbed an 80-year-old woman and then slit her throat to ”finish the job” was executed early Thursday. Michael Donald Roberts was pronounced dead at 12:21 a.m., four minutes after being administered a lethal dose of drugs. ”What y’all are seeing here today is wrong. This is supposed to be a Christian state. You’ve just got to ask the Lord to forgive them,” Roberts said in his final statement.
Roberts was executed for the January 1988 death of Lula Mae Brooks at her Oklahoma City home. No one was scheduled to witness the execution for Brooks. Six witnesses were present for Roberts as he told his attorney and family members that he loved them. ”I love all of y’all and thank the good Lord for bringing you into my life,”’ he said. Shortly after the execution began, Roberts looked up through the windows to the witnesses. One waved, another gave a thumbs-up sign. Roberts leaned back, then forward, and made a kissing gesture to them. He quickly became unconscious then made several panting breaths before he laid still.
Earlier Wednesday, last-attempt appeals were denied. ”As this sentence is finally carried out, my thoughts are with the family of Lula Mae Brooks,” Attorney General Drew Edmondson said. Roberts was the 105th inmate executed in Oklahoma and the 22nd in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
He was sentenced to death after police said he confessed to killing Brooks. Roberts, who lived three houses down, told police he saw Brooks’ door open and went inside. He then stabbed her when she charged after him with a knife, according to a police confession. Brooks asked him to ”finish the job,” Roberts told police. Prosecutors said Brooks was killed because she could identify Roberts. During his trial, Roberts recanted his earlier confession, which included an admission to 19 other robberies. Roberts said he confessed because detectives offered him a 15-year sentence to clear up the killing and robberies. Detectives denied the claim.
For his last meal, Roberts asked for three pounds of barbecued beef ribs, six dinner rolls, one Cornish hen, one cheeseburger, a 7-Up and a strawberry drink. Small groups of death penalty supports and opponents gathered outside the prison’s gates Wednesday night. ”The death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst,” said Judy Busch, who founded the Homicide Survivors Support Group after the 1990 murder of her 7-year-old granddaughter, Katherine Ann Busch, in El Reno. Just up the street the Rev. Bryan Brooks, pastor of the St. Anthony’s and Uganda Martyrs Catholic churches in Okmulgee, led death penalty opponents in prayer for Roberts and victims of violent crimes.
”The men there on death row, they know we’re here,” he said. As of Feb. 1, there were 143 individuals on Oklahoma’s death row. Two executions were scheduled for March.
