Oklahoma executed a man Thursday who was convicted of kidnapping, raping
and killing his former stepdaughter, 7-year-old Layla Cummings, in 1984.

Richard Rojem, 66, had exhausted his appeals and received a three-drug
lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Rojem
had been in prison since 1985 and was the longest-serving inmate on
Oklahoma's death row.

When asked if he had any last words, Rojem, who was strapped to a gurney
and had an IV in his tattooed left arm, said: "I don't. I've said my
goodbyes."

The execution started at 10:03 a.m., state Department of Corrections
Director Steven Harpe said in a statement. Rojem looked briefly toward
several witnesses who were inside a room next to the death chamber before
the first drug, the sedative midazolam, began to flow. A spiritual adviser
was in the death chamber with Rojem during the execution.

Rojem was declared unconscious at 10:08 a.m., Harpe said. He was declared
dead at 10:16 a.m.

"Justice for Layla Cummings was finally served this morning with the
execution of the monster responsible for her rape and murder," state
Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement after the execution.
"Layla's family has endured unimaginable suffering for almost 40 years. My
prayer is that today's action brings a sense of comfort to those who loved
her."

Harpe said Rojem was served his last meal Wednesday at 5:48 p.m., which
included a small Little Caesars pizza with double cheese and double
pepperoni, a ginger ale and two vanilla ice cream cups.

During a clemency hearing earlier this month, Rojem denied responsibility
for killing the girl. The child's mutilated and partially clothed body was
discovered in a field in western Oklahoma near the town of Burns Flat. She
had been stabbed to death.

"I wasn't a good human being for the first part of my life, and I don't
deny that," said Rojem, handcuffed and wearing a red prison uniform, when
he appeared via a video link from prison before the state's Pardon and
Parole Board. "But I went to prison. I learned my lesson and I left all
that behind."

The board unanimously denied Rojem's bid for mercy. Rojem's attorney, Jack
Fisher, said there were no pending appeals that would have halted his
execution.

Rojem was previously convicted of raping two teenage girls in Michigan and
prosecutors allege he was angry at Layla Cummings because she reported
that he sexually abused her, leading to his divorce from the girl's mother
and his return to prison for violating his parole.

"For many years, the shock of losing her and the knowledge of the sheer
terror, pain and suffering that she endured at the hands of this soulless
monster was more than I could fathom how to survive day to day," Layla's
mother, Mindy Lynn Cummings, wrote to the parole board.

Before the execution, Drummond said Rojem was a "real-life monster who
deserves the same absence of mercy he showed to the child he savagely
murdered," CBS Oklahoma City affiliate KWTV reports.

Rojem's attorneys argued that DNA evidence taken from the girl's
fingernails did not link him to the crime and urged the clemency board to
recommend his life be spared and that his sentence be commuted to life in
prison without parole.

"If my client's DNA is not present, he should not be convicted," Fisher
said.

Prosecutors say plenty of evidence other than DNA was used to convict
Rojem, including a fingerprint that was discovered outside the girl's
apartment on a cup from a bar Rojem left just before the girl was
kidnapped. A condom wrapper found near the girl's body also was linked to
a used condom found in Rojem's bedroom, prosecutors said.

A Washita County jury convicted Rojem in 1985 after just 45 minutes of
deliberations. His previous death sentences were twice overturned by
appellate courts because of trial errors. A Custer County jury ultimately
handed him his third death sentence in 2007.

With the execution of Rojem on Thursday, Oklahoma, which has executed more
inmates per capita than any other state in the nation since the death
penalty was reinstated in 1976, has now carried out 13 executions since
resuming lethal injections in October 2021 following a nearly six-year
hiatus resulting from problems with executions in 2014 and 2015.

Death penalty opponents planned to hold vigils Thursday outside the
governor's mansion in Oklahoma City and the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in
McAlester.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oklahoma-execute-richard-rojem-kidnap-rape-
murder-ex-stepdaughter-7-layla-cummings/