Scott Carpenter was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of A.J. Kelley
According to court documents Scott Carpenter would fill up his truck with fuel, grab a bunch of stuff off of the shelf and proceeded to stab the owner A.J. Kelley to death
Scott Carpenter would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Scott Carpenter would be executed by lethal injection on May 8 1997. His death at the age of 22 makes him the youngest person to be executed in the United States since 1977 when capital punishment resumed
Scott Carpenter Photos
Scott Carpenter Case
Scott Carpenter died much as he had lived – alone in a crowded room.
None of the 25 people who witnessed Carpenter’s execution early Thursday were there by his choice.
He could have named up to five friends and relatives to witness his death. Instead, Carpenter requested that no one – not even the attorney who had befriended him in recent months – be present.
By all accounts, his final choice reflected his lifestyle.
“He lived alone and died alone. I don’t think anyone would dispute that,” his attorney, Deborah Reheard, said.
Carpenter, 22, brought a sense of dignity to the proceedings through a contrite written statement and a letter of apology to the family of his victim, A.J. Kelley.
The statement, read by Reheard after her client’s death, said: “I appeal to the young and old; do not stray onto the wrong path of life as I did.”
His path was “a long and bumpy road, with a lot of regrets and few second chances,” Carpenter wrote.
He acknowledged that waiving his appeals may have been the wrong choice. “And if there are consequences to face in the afterlife, I will face them, also.”
Those who follow a life of crime ” will pay for the consequences of their actions,” the killer wrote.
Carpenter was 19 when he walked into Kelley’s bait and grocery store near Lake Eufaula, lured Kelley into a back room and stabbed him in the back and neck.
On the advice of a different attorney, he entered a blind guilty plea to first-degree murder. Carpenter escaped from the county jail while awaiting sentencing and was absent when the judge imposed the death penalty.
The inmate asked in January to waive his remaining appeals. He became the youngest person to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Prison officials described him as remarkably calm, even comforting, during his final hours.
Carpenter’s letter to Kelley’s relatives seemed to satisfy their need for closure, said Carl Kelley, the victim’s son.
“My father taught me a lot of things, and one of the things he taught me was to stand up and say you’re sorry for something, to be a man.
“The other thing he taught me was to accept an apology. We accept Scott’s apology,’ the son said.
Carl Kelley, a former police officer, still wishes he could have spoken with Carpenter in an effort to understand what makes a man who has no criminal record kill. In his letter to the Kelley family, Carpenter said that, three years later, he still didn’t know the answer
“We want to think that somebody like Scott who commits this crime is a monster. Scott was no monster. I truly believe he made a mistake, and he paid for his crime,” the son said.
The victim, 56, was described as a loving father who worked two full-time jobs so his family could escape poverty.
“When I was born, we lived in a one-room shack with no toilet. He brought us into a nice brick home,” Carl Kelley said.
Carpenter’s death was probably the roughest of the nine lethal-injection executions the state has performed since 1990.
His body made 18 violent convulsions, followed by eight milder ones, before the life drained from him.
“There was probably more body action with this one than I’ve seen,” said Ron Ward, the warden at Oklahoma State Penitentiary who has witnessed six executions
It also took longer than normal for the body movements to stop. Ward said Carpenter’s youth, his large body frame and his strong heart were probably the cause.
The execution began at 12:11 a.m. after Carpenter said he had no final statement.
As chaplain Jim Harris read from John 14, Carpenter’s chest and stomach began pulsing, and his jaw clenched. At 12:13, he began making noises.
At 12:14, his upper body began the violent convulsions. Moments later, his face turned yellowish gray. His legs, though strapped down, lifted one final time, and by 12:15, all movement stopped.
His face turned much darker by 12:16. Four minutes later, it was a deep purple and gray. There now was little contrast between his skin color and his sparse mustache.
Dr. Robert Wiebe checked for a pulse at 12:21 and declared Carpenter dead a minute later
The inmate will be buried in Ada.
Tom Giulioli, the district attorney whose office sent Carpenter to death row, said he was impressed with the professionalism involved with the execution.
“I felt that it was done in a manner that was respectful. I don’t know that you can ever say that an execution was done properly, but if there is such a term, I think it was carried out just like they had outlined it,” Giulioli said.