Mom of murdered baby didn't want killer executed; prior lethal injection in Okla. was botched
Updated: Oklahoma scheduled the execution of convicted baby killer Charles Warner for 6 p.m. Thursday, though the victim’s mother opposed it. The execution took place at 7:10 p.m., and Warner was pronounced dead 18 minutes later, CNN reported.
Warner was the first Oklahoma inmate put to death since the botched April 29 execution of Clayton Lockett, later found to be marred by a poorly placed intravenous catheter. The New York Times, KJRH.com and NBC News have stories.
Lockett kicked and grimaced during the lengthy execution. The procedure was halted, but Lockett died 43 minutes after the process began.
Oklahoma has since added equipment to ensure proper placement of IVs during its executions, and has increased the amount of the sedative midazolam that will be used in the lethal-injection cocktail.
According to Associated Press reporter Sean Murphy, who witnessed the execution, Warner said “my body is on fire” once the execution started, but did not show any other obvious signs of distress, CNN reported.
Warner was convicted of the August 1997 rape and murder of his roommate’s baby daughter. The baby’s mother, Shonda Waller, said in a taped statement for defense lawyers that she opposed the execution because it would dishonor her daughter and went against her religion, says NBC, which has a video clip here.
“For me, morally it’s wrong,” she said. “God always has the final say-so on life and death, and after everything I’ve been through, I wouldn’t want his family to suffer the way I’ve suffered or his child to have to endure losing her father. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
“I don’t hate him. I have forgiven him,” she said. “As a Christian woman you know that you have to forgive anyone in order to even move on with your life.”
Waller supported life in prison without parole for Warner. “To me, the justice is in someone living with what they have done to you, your family, and having to live with that for the rest of their life knowing they will never walk out those bars,” she said.
Updated Jan. 16 to note Warner’s execution.
