Oklahoma: Man convicted in 1995 Tulsa murder executed

A man convicted of beating a convenience store clerk to death with a baseball bat nearly 14 years ago has been put to death.

Darwin Demond Brown was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. Thursday after receiving a lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

The 32-year-old Brown and 3 other men were convicted of killing Richard Yost during the February 1995 robbery of a QuikTrip store in Tulsa. Yost's bound and battered body was discovered by a customer in the store's walk-in refrigerator in a pool of blood, milk and beer.

The state Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency for Brown on Jan. 7, and Brown's attorney, James Hankins, said his client had exhausted all of his appeals.

Hankins had not denied that Brown participated in the killing, but appealed to the parole board to spare his client's life because he was just 18 years old when the killing happened and two of Brown's co-defendants were the "primary movers" behind the robbery.

But prosecutors argued the killing was particularly grisly and played a portion of a surveillance tape from the store in which Yost could be heard screaming for help after being dragged into the store's cooler.

Yost's wife, Angie Houser-Yost, had planned to witness Brown's execution with her oldest son.

2 of Brown's co-defendants Michael L. Wilson, 33, and Billy D. Alverson, 37 were sentenced to death and are awaiting execution. A 3rd defendant who was 17 at the time of the killing, Richard J. Harjo, now 30, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Brown received his last meal Thursday afternoon.

Brown becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Oklahoma and the 89th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1990. Only Texas (426) and Virginia (102) have executed more individuals since the US Supreme Court re-legalized the death penalty in the Gregg v. Georgia decision on July 2, 1976.

Brown becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1140th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: The Oklahoman & Rick Halperin, January 23, 2009