OKLAHOMA LAST MEAL
DARWIN DEMOND BROWN
January 22, 2009

...inmates are limited to $15 for their last meals request. Food must be available in the McAlester area...

Last Meal: Brown had a final meal request of barbecue ribs, chopped beef, hot links, baked beans, plain potato chips, coconut doughnuts and chocolate milk.

Inmates are limited to $15 for their last meals request. Food must be available in the McAlester area.

The skinny: Brown, 32, was executed for beating a convenience store clerk to death with a baseball bat nearly 14 years ago.

More skinny: Brown and three other men were convicted of killing a man during the robbery of a QuikTrip store in Tulsa.

The victim's bound and battered body was discovered by a customer in the store's walk-in refrigerator in a pool of blood, milk and beer.

Michael L. Wilson was a co-worker of the victim and took a post behind the counter to wait on customers as the man lay dying in the cooler.

The defendants then loaded two safes into Wilson's car using a dolly from the QuikTrip. When Wilson failed to show up for work at the scheduled time of 3:00 p.m. on the same day, surveillance was set on Wilson's house.

Shortly thereafter Wilson was spotted getting into a gray vehicle. The vehicle was stopped. All four defendants were taken into custody. Later, at the police station, money was recovered from all of the defendants except Wilson. The next day Wilson's mother called officers to her house. Once there, the detectives found several items of evidence on the front porch, including the baseball bat, a bloody QuikTrip jacket with the victim's name on it, and Wilson's Nike jacket matching the one worn in the store video.

Two of the co-defendants, Billy D. Alverson, 37, and Wilson, 33, also got death sentences and are awaiting execution.

Richard J. Harjo, another defendant who was 17 at the time of the crime, received a no-parole life sentence,

When he was killed, the victim had just received his real estate license.

The D.A. remembers: Former Tulsa County District Attorney Bill LaFortune..."All murders are terrible crimes. But I think this crime and this murder was as barbaric a crime as we’ve ever seen in Tulsa County.

"The strongest piece of evidence — the surveillance tape — has to be one of the most compelling pieces of evidence ever presented to a jury anywhere, in my opinion.”

Youth: Brown's life of crime began at 15 years old when he was arrested in Tulsa with a loaded .25-caliber handgun. Brown's delinquency escalated over the next few years with assault and a drug offense.

Failed appeal: The state Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency for Brown on Jan. 7, and Brown's attorney, James Hankins, said his client had exhausted all of his appeals. Hankins had not denied that Brown participated in the killing, but appealed to the parole board to spare his client's life because he was just 18 years old when the killing happened and two of Brown's co-defendants were the "primary movers" behind the robbery.

But prosecutors argued the killing was particularly grisly and played a portion of a surveillance tape from the store in which the victim could be heard screaming for help after being dragged into the store's cooler.

Leading up to: Inmates banged on their cell doors and building pipes shortly before the execution, which has been done in the past when death sentences are carried out.

Last words and such: Brown spoke words of remorse Thursday.

"I apologize for anybody I hurt,” he said while strapped to a gurney with tubes in his arms. "I’m sorry to everybody. … I’d like to thank all of my family for the support that they’ve given me.”

Looking through the glass of the witness room, Brown mouthed "I love you” to his father.

Brown's father responded: "I love you Darwin."

Lethal drugs were injected into Brown beginning at 6:05 p.m.

As the concoction began to take effect, Brown’s eyes rolled back and his mouth opened slightly. Seconds later, he rose up slightly to cough several times. He released a couple of gasps before becoming still, his eyes and mouth half-open.

"That's my baby," Mr. Brown said as his son stopped breathing and the color slowly drained from Darwin Brown's face.

He was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m.

Factoids: Brown was the...

4th murderer executed in U.S. in 2009
1140th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st murderer executed in Oklahoma in 2008
89th murderer executed in Oklahoma since 1976