McALESTER, Okla. — Oklahoma executed Raymond Johnson, 52, by lethal injection Thursday morning at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for the 2007 killing of his ex-girlfriend Brooke Whitaker and her 7-month-old daughter Kya, closing a nearly two-decade chapter for the Whitaker family. Johnson was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. following an 11-minute procedure using the state’s three-drug protocol, prison officials said.
The execution came after Johnson’s attorneys opted not to file a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, having previously argued unsuccessfully that his arrest was illegal, his confession coerced, and his trial lawyer had conceded guilt in Whitaker’s death without permission. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted unanimously in April to deny clemency, despite Johnson’s apology and insistence he had changed.
In a final statement from the execution chamber, Johnson addressed the victims’ family. “To Brooke and Kya and your family, I want to apologize for my actions and the pain I caused you,” Johnson said while strapped to the gurney. “I hope people can speak your names without my name attached to it. I hurt you. One day, I hope you can forgive me.” His spiritual advisor, Kurt Borgmann, read Scripture aloud during the execution; a tear rolled from Johnson’s left eye as Borgmann spoke.
Prosecutors detailed the June 2007 attack at Whitaker’s Tulsa home. Johnson and Whitaker had been arguing when he struck her repeatedly with a metal claw hammer, fracturing her skull and inflicting more than 20 lacerations on her face and scalp. Whitaker, still conscious, begged him to spare her and Kya, who was sleeping in another room, according to documents prepared for the clemency hearing. “She begged him to call 911. She begged him to let her mom come get baby Kya. She begged him to think of her children,” the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said in its filing. Johnson then retrieved a gas can from a backyard shed, doused Whitaker and the house with gasoline, lit a dish towel, and threw it at her before leaving. Whitaker died from head injuries and smoke inhalation; Kya died from severe burns.
Whitaker’s family, who had fought for the execution to proceed, expressed a mix of grief and relief. Angie Short, Whitaker’s aunt, criticized delays that pushed the execution from its original 2024 date, noting that Whitaker’s mother died about five months after that date. “Because of the delays, my sister didn’t get to witness justice,” Short said. “This couldn’t bring them back. But we’ll no longer have to see his face on TV. He’s no longer associated with Brooke and Kya. Now I think we can finally begin to heal after 20 years.”
Logan Kleck, Whitaker’s oldest daughter, did not witness the execution but wrote in a letter to the parole board that “executing him will not give me my mom or sister back, it will not take away almost 20 years of pain. What it will do is finally stop him from continuing to hurt us.”
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he hoped the family would “find some measure of peace today after enduring unimaginable pain and grief for nearly two decades.”
The state’s execution protocol uses midazolam as a sedative, followed by vecuronium bromide to halt breathing and potassium chloride to stop the heart. A doctor declared Johnson unconscious about six minutes after the first drugs began to flow, officials said.
Johnson was the second person put to death in Oklahoma this year and the 11th in the United States, according to the Associated Press. He had previously served nine years of a 20-year sentence for a 1996 manslaughter conviction.