Oklahoma executed 73-year-old James Pavatt on Thursday via lethal injection for his role in a 2001 murder-for-hire plot that claimed the life of Rob Andrew, the estranged husband of Pavatt’s lover, Brenda Andrew. Pavatt, who maintained his innocence at a clemency hearing and accused Brenda Andrew of manipulation, offered no last words before being pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the shooting death of Andrew, a 39-year-old advertising executive, who was gunned down in his garage just before Thanksgiving as he was picking up his two young children. Prosecutors argued that Pavatt and Brenda Andrew, who was also sentenced to death in a separate trial, orchestrated the killing. Weeks prior, Rob Andrew had alerted police that someone was attempting to kill him after his car’s brake lines were cut. Brenda Andrew initially claimed masked intruders had shot her and her husband, but evidence and subsequent events, including their flight to Mexico with her children and subsequent arrest three months later while re-entering the U.S., led to their convictions. Pavatt’s execution was the first of two scheduled in the U.S. on Thursday, with John Allen Rubio also set to be executed in Texas for the stabbing and beheading of three young children.
Adapted from: U.S. News Today on Fox News
