McAlester (US): A man convicted of shooting and killing two people in Oklahoma City more than two decades ago was executed Thursday morning. Michael Dewayne Smith received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m.
Smith, 41, was sentenced to die in the separate shooting deaths of Janet Moore, 41, and Sharath Pulluru, 22, in February 2002. He is the first person executed in Oklahoma this year and the 12th put to death since the state resumed executions in 2021 following a nearly seven-year hiatus resulting from problems with executions in 2014 and 2015.
During a clemency hearing last month, Smith expressed his deepest sorrows to the victims' families, but denied he was responsible. Prosecutors say Smith was a ruthless gang member who killed both victims in misguided acts of revenge and confessed his involvement in the killings to police and two other people.
