| Execution date sought for death-row inmate | | Posted: Thursday, January 10, 2013 9:03 pm
| From AP, staff reports
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals to set an execution date for a death-row inmate convicted of killing people in three states, including Tennessee.
Pruitt asked the court on Monday to set an execution date for Steven Ray Thacker, hours after the U.S. Supreme rejected Thacker’s appeal.
Thacker was arrested in Union City in 2000.
He pleaded guilty in Oklahoma to first-degree murder and other charges in the December 1999 stabbing death of 25-year-old Laci Dawn Hill of Bixby. He received the death penalty after a sentencing hearing.
Thacker was also sentenced to death in Tennessee for the Jan. 2, 2000, killing of Dyersburg tow truck driver Ray Patterson and to life in prison in the Jan. 1, 2000, death of Forrest Boyd inside his Aldrich, Mo., home.
According to police and court records, Thacker apparently had called Patterson to tow his car after it broke down as he was driving from Missouri toward Dyersburg. Patter-son towed the car to a service station and Thacker allegedly tried to pay him with a stolen credit card.
When the card was rejected, Thacker stabbed Patterson because he knew Thacker was wanted in other states, authorities said. Thacker then fled and was arrested at a Union City motel.
Defense attorney Frank Bauman did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
Published in The Messenger 1.10.13 | | | | |
