Robert Bryan was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of his Aunt Mildred Inabell Bryan
According to court documents Robert Bryan would shoot sixty nine year old Mildred Inabell Bryan in the head. It turned out that Robert Bryan had been taking out money and loans using his aunts name and information
Robert Bryan would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Bryan would be executed by lethal injection on June 8 2004
Robert Bryan Photos
Robert Bryan FAQ
When Was Robert Bryan Executed
Robert Bryan was executed on June 8 2004
Robert Bryan Case
Wilma Wykoffe wiped tears from her eyes. “I didn’t understand most of what he said,” she said to no one in particular as she walked by the four windows above five rows of cinder blocks that separated witnesses from the execution chamber of Oklahoma State Penitentiary. “I did hear him say he’d made peace with his maker.” Wykoffe, joined by her husband and four others, had just witnessed her brother’s execution. Robert Leroy Bryan was pronounced dead at 7:24 p.m. Tuesday, less than 45 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a request for a stay of execution.
Bryan, 63, had argued that he was incompetent to be executed; an argument turned down earlier in the day by a federal district judge and the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Convicted of killing his aunt, Mildred Inabell Bryan, in 1993, Bryan had hinged his last hopes to avoid execution on a claim that he did not understand why he was to be executed. However, U.S. District Judge David L. Russell found that Bryan did understand and was therefore eligible for execution – the same finding reached by the federal appeals court and the Supreme Court later in the day. The nation’s high court delayed the execution, initially scheduled for 6 p.m., for an hour as it considered Bryan’s claim. That delay caused some consternation to Mildred Bryan’s family members, who had traveled to OSP to witness the execution. “I had trouble thinking of him as a person because of what he put my mother through,” said Linda Daley, Mildred Bryan’s daughter.
Daley’s mother had last been seen on Sept. 11, 1993. Her body was found Sept. 16 in a field near Robert Bryan’s home; a pillowcase over her head. She’d been shot between the eyes. Robert Bryan was “my father’s nephew,” Daley said, adding that the inmate’s family hadn’t been close to the rest of the Bryan clan since the 1950s. The inmate was a diabetic described by many who knew him as a “manipulator” who used his illness to gain sympathy. Jan Warren, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted Bryan at trial, said during his clemency hearing, “Have you heard the term sociopath? Mr. Bryan is the closest thing to a sociopath I’ve ever seen.”
As he lay on the gurney in the state’s execution chamber, Bryan never looked toward the room in which his sister and brother-in-law, attorney Bob Nance, four reporters and others sat – much less at the one-way glass that shielded 12 of Mildred Bryan’s family members and friends from view. With his head facing OSP Warden Mike Mullin, most of Bryan’s last words were unintelligible, but witnesses clearly heard him say “I have been on death row for some time. I’ve made peace with my maker. “I’ll be leaving here shortly. “I hope I’ll see you on the other side. Until then, so long.”
As Wykoffe sobbed against her husband’s shoulder, Bryan’s abdomen rose one time before he gave a loud snort. Three minutes later he was pronounced dead. “I feel like a chapter in my family’s life can go on now,” Daley said. “We can think more about our mother than the monster. Š It will be nice to know we don’t have to look to any more procedures in the legal system.”
Robert Bryan was the fifth Oklahoma inmate executed this year. For his last meal, he requested 10 pieces of fried chicken, barbecue beans, cole slaw, potatoes and gravy, two biscuits and two liters of Dr. Pepper
http://mcalesternews.com/articles/2004/06/09/news/local_news/news09.txt
