Death row killer’s flippant last three words before execution
Double murderer Michael Dewayne Smith's remark wasn't entered into the official record of his final words.
‘Nah, I’m good.’
This is all Michael Dewayne Smith had to say when asked if he had any last words before his execution in Oklahoma on Thursday.
The 41-year-old double murderer’s response was so nonchalant that the official record states he didn’t give a final statement.
Only yesterday he had already bucked the trend by refusing a last meal of his choice in favour of polishing off some of his remaining canteen items.
Smith was convicted of fatally shooting Janet Moore, 41, and Sharath Pulluru, 22, in 2002, when he was a 19-year-old enforcer for an Oklahoma City gang.
He believed Ms Moore’s son was a ‘snitch’ helping lead police to him and violently confronted her, according to prosecutors.
Jurors heard he shot Mr Pulluru, a convenience store worker, believing he was another worker in the same store who had disrespected a deceased member of his gang.
The worker had been quoted in a local newspaper praising a neighbouring grocery store owner for killing Smith’s fellow gangster in self-defence during an armed robbery attempt.
After the killing, Smith doused Mr Pulluru’s body in lighter fluid and set it alight, prosecutors added.
According to police, Smith confessed to both killings and said Ms Moore was to blame for her own death because ‘she panicked’.
But he maintained innocence until his death, claiming he had given his confession under the influence of hallucinatory street drug PCP, known as ‘angel dust’.
His lawyers claimed key elements of the confession did not align with the evidence in the case.
Occasionally breaking into tears at a recent clemency hearing, Smith expressed his ‘deepest sorrows’ to the victims’ families, but denied his involvement.
During the 15-minute address to the board, he said: ‘I didn’t commit these crimes. I didn’t kill these people.’
The board denied Smith clemency by a vote of four to one.
Smith’s lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay of execution, but this was denied on Thursday morning.
He was executed by lethal injection the same day and was pronounced dead at 10.20am.
Smith was the first person executed in the US state this year, and the 12th since Oklahoma resumed executions in 2021.
Once of the most prolific executioners in the US, Oklahoma took a nearly seven-year hiatus as death row inmates launched a constitutional challenge after a series of botched lethal injections.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.