Oklahoma Resumes Executions

An inmate convicted in the shotgun slaying of an elderly man who walked in on a burglary was put to death by injection early Monday in Oklahoma’s first execution in 24 years.

As Charles Troy Coleman, 43, was executed, candlelight vigils were held outside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and at the Capitol in Oklahoma City.

“Just tell everybody I love them and I have a peace and quiet heart,” Coleman, his voice quivering, said shortly before he died.

Coleman had been sentenced to die for the 1979 slaying of John Seward in Muskogee. Seward, 68, and his wife, Roxie, 62, were killed when they surprised a burglar at a relative’s home. Coleman was not tried in Mrs. Seward’s death.

Oklahoma becomes the 15th state to execute someone since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed use of the death penalty to resume.

In Illinois, meanwhile, Gov. James R. Thompson on Monday refused to commute the death sentence of double-murderer Charles Walker. “I think Mr. Walker has put himself to death; I’m simply not standing in the way,” Thompson said.