Steven Ray Thacker, a 42-year-old Oklahoma State Penitentiary death row inmate, is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, March 12, 2013, at 6 p.m. in McAlester, OK.
The announcement was made in January after Thacker had exhausted all his appeals in Oklahoma.
Thacker pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in the December 1999 killing of 25-year-old Laci Dawn Hill of Bixby, OK. Thacker received the death penalty after a sentencing hearing.
Thacker can ask the board to commute his death sentence to life in prison, but Pardon and Parole Board attorney Tracy George told The Associated Press last month that Thacker waived his clemency hearing.
In a 10-day period during the Christmas-New Year’s holiday of 1999-2000, Thacker was accused of first killing Laci Dawn Hill. Thacker then faced murder charges in the death of restaurant supervisor Forrest Reed Boyd, 24, of Aldrich, Missouri, and of truck driver, Ray Patterson, 52, of Tennessee.
Thacker was sentenced to death in Tennessee for killing Ray Patterson and he received a life sentence without parole for killing Forrest Reed Boyd in Missouri, according to Attorney General Pruitt.
Thacker was being held on death row at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee and was transferred on Feb. 12 to the Oklahoma State Prison H-Unit.
Barring an act of mercy by Gov. Mary Fallin, Steven Ray Thacker will be executed by lethal injection at 6 pm, on Tuesday, March 12, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He will be Oklahoma’s first execution in 2013.
“Oklahoma State Prison gears up for yet another state-sanctioned murder,” said Lydia Polley, OK-CADP Co-Chair. “As they prepare for the execution of Steven Thacker, we send our thoughts and prayers to the families of Laci Dawn Hill, Forrest Reed Boyd, Ray Patterson, Steven Thacker’s family, and those who must carry out this execution.”
“We invite everyone to join us as we stand in front of the Governor’s mansion, 820 NE 23 St., Tuesday, March 12, at 5:15 pm in our “Don’t Kill for Me” protest demonstration and transition into silent vigil at the appointed hour of 6 pm until death is pronounced,” Polley said.
Upon Thacker’s passing, the state will issue a death certificate as it does for every person who dies in Oklahoma. For Steven Thacker, the cause of death will be listed as homicide, which is defined as “the deliberate and unlawful killing of one person by another.”
“When someone is executed by the state, she or he is killed in my name,” said OK-CADP board member Margaret Cox. “We all hold a responsibility not to let that happen. This action should not go unnoticed by the people of Oklahoma.”
For more information visit www.okcadp.org.
Tags: execution, oklahoma, steven ray thacker
