Mississippi has executed Richard Gerald Jordan, the state’s longest-serving death row inmate.
Jordan, 79, was put to death by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman Wednesday evening, nearly 50 years on from when he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer’s wife in a violent ransom scheme.
He had been on death row since 1976 after his case involved four trials and numerous appeals.
The Vietnam veteran, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, was one of several on the state’s death row involved in a lawsuit over Mississippi’s three-drug execution protocol, which the suit argues is inhumane.
An appeal to the U.S Supreme Court for Jordan’s reprieve was out as late as Wednesday afternoon but it was denied.
Governor Tate Reeves was also petitioned to provide Jordan clemency after arguments that the veteran developed PTSD after serving three back-to-back tours in the Vietnam War, which could have been a factor in his crime. The governor denied the request.
At a press conference earlier Wednesday, officials revealed that Jordan was served his final meal of chicken tenders, French fries, strawberry ice cream and a root beer float at 4 p.m. local time, WLOX reported.
He was said to be in “a good mood” hours before his execution, and shared memories from his past.
In 1976, Jordan was sentenced to death for killing and kidnapping Edwina Marter, a mother of two young children.
Eric Marter, who was 11 when his mother was killed, said neither he, his brother, nor his father would attend the execution, but said other family members were expected to be there.
“It should have happened a long time ago,” he said of the execution. “I’m not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
Mississippi Supreme Court records show that in January 1976, Jordan called the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport, Mississippi, and asked to speak with a loan officer.
After he was told Charles Marter could speak to him, he hung up. He then looked up the Marters’ home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter. According to court records, Jordan took her to a forest and shot her to death before calling her husband, claiming she was safe and demanding $25,000.
“He needs to be punished,” Eric Marter added.
Franklin Rosenblatt, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, who wrote the clemency petition on Jordan’s behalf, said that the veteran’s war trauma “was not considered relevant” in his murder trial.
“We just know so much more than we did 10 years ago, and certainly during Vietnam, about the effect of war trauma on the brain and how that affects ongoing behaviors,” Rosenblatt said.
Before his execution, Jordan was one of 22 people across the country sentenced for crimes in the 1970s still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
