Death Row Inmate Is Saved, Then Executed

When they found Robert Brecheen groggy from an overdose in his cell, they rushed him to the hospital and had his stomach pumped. Then they brought him back to prison, strapped him on a gurney and executed him.

“Certainly, there’s irony,” said Larry Field, director of Oklahoma’s Corrections Department. “But we’re bound by the law, the same law that he violated.”

State law forbids execution of a prisoner who is not mentally competent.

State Penitentiary Warden Ron Ward refused to speculate on how a man on Death Row could overdose on sedatives, and whether the 40-year-old killer was attempting suicide or just trying to delay his execution early Friday.

Brecheen was supposed to be put to death by injection at midnight.

Guards had trouble waking Brecheen in his holding cell about 9 p.m. Thursday. He was breathing heavily, his pupils were dilated and he drifted in and out of consciousness on the way to the hospital, but he was in no danger of dying then, officials said.

Inside the prison, the husband of murder victim Marie Stubbs waited patiently for the execution.

“It wasn’t his job to take his life,” said 71-year-old Hilton Stubbs.

The execution was finally carried out about two hours late.