Published: April 19, 2006 10:11 am      

Killer says he’s sorry for his crime before he dies

The woman leaned forward Tuesday evening, her head resting against a family member’s chest. “Oh my God. He can’t be dead.”

But he was. The time was 6:20 p.m.

Four minutes earlier he apologized to the families of the three men he was convicted of killing.

Asked if he had any last words, death row inmate Richard Alford Thornburg Jr. raised his head slightly from the gurney to which he was strapped and glanced toward the witness room in the state’s execution chamber. His eyes lingered on the woman with short blonde hair and four others present at his request, wandered to the one-way glass behind which sat members of his victims’ families and then returned to the ceiling above him.

“I just want to say I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused,” he said. “I’m truly ashamed of my actions. I wish it could’ve been me.

“I’m sorry.

“I wish I could take it back.”

As the combination of three drugs began flowing into his body, Thornburg blinked several times and exhaled deeply. His lower abdomen hitched one time and he lay still, eyes and mouth open.

Seven people, including Thornburg’s sister, wife, brother, two brother-in-laws and a spiritual advisor had been scheduled to witness the execution on his behalf. Five did; two men and three women. Prison officials declined to release their names.

As the women sobbed softly in the front line of witness chairs, there was no sound from behind the one-way glass. The family members of 51-year-old James Donald Poteet, 39-year-old Terry Lynn Shepard and 24-year-old Keith Alan Smith were silent, both during and after the execution.

Thornburg, 40, had been convicted of shooting the three men at Poteet’s home on Sept. 28, 1996, then setting the house on fire. All three died as a combination of gunshots and fire injuries, according to a medical examiner’s testimony.

Two other men were also convicted of the crime, which began when they forced Marvin Matheson at gunpoint to accompany them from his home to Poteet’s.

Thornburg forced Matheson to shoot a fourth victim, Donald Brent Scott, by threatening to kill Matheson if he didn’t. Scott survived the gunshot to his chest and was able to crawl outside the home, where he was rescued by two passersby.

“Although he was shot in the chest, fortunately for us, Donald Scott managed to crawl out of the burning home and survived,” said Grady County Assistant District Attorney Bret Burns, who prosecuted Thornburg. “If he hadn’t survived, nobody would have believed this story.”

Burns said the defendants kidnapped Scott, Shepard and Smith from Scott’s house next door to Poteet’s so there would be no eyewitnesses to the crime.

Also convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, Glenn Anderson’s appeal is pending with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Co-defendant Roger Embry was convicted and received one life sentence and two sentences of life without the possibility of parole.

During Thornburg’s trial, defense attorneys argued that Thornburg had brain damage and was prone to blackouts during bouts of heavy drinking.

Thornburg did not request a clemency hearing, but the Attorney General’s Office had prepared for the hearing anyway. That preparation includes getting letters from the family members of victims and others involved in the case, which were shared with members of the media on request.

Ann Smith, mother of murder victim Keith Smith, wrote that she and her husband felt robbed by his death. “We were robbed of so much hope for our future,” she wrote. “… Our legacy, our inheritance was stolen, murdered along with Keith. … One week before he died, he came by and I hugged him and he left. This was the last time I saw my son, the last time I could see the mischief in his eyes or the confidence that comes from being 24 and your whole life ahead of you.”

Thornburg spent his last day visiting with family members and friends. His last meal, fried chicken, potato wedges, Pepsi and apple pie, was served at noon.

Thornburg was the first inmate executed in Oklahoma this year and the 163rd since 1915.

Ironically, his death was on the 22nd anniversary of the death of Doug Kirby, whose killer is scheduled to be executed June 1. John Albert Boltz stabbed his stepson 11 times, including one cut that almost decapitated the 24-year-old Kirby.