Randall Eugene Cannon was executed Tuesday for the 1985 slaying of an
84-year-old woman who was abducted from her Oklahoma City home, badly
beaten and burned.

Cannon, 42, was pronounced dead at 6:05 p.m. after receiving a lethal
combination of drugs.

The state's 3rd execution this year and its 134th in history came after
Cannon's appeal for a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected.

Cannon was sentenced to die for the 1985 killing of Addie Hawley, who was
abducted from her Oklahoma City home the night of June 24 and found hours
later nude and incoherent in a vacant lot.

She had been beaten and had severe burns over 60 % to 65 % of her body.
Authorities say Hawley, who died the next day, had moved 10 to 15 feet
while burning.

"Of the 80 or 90 homicides I've worked in the last 21 years, when you
consider only cases with single victims, this was the meanest killing
I've ever been associated with," said Lou Keel, an Oklahoma County
prosecutor who prosecuted Cannon.

Cannon, who was raised in Tulsa and had a history of drug use, admitted
he watched co-defendant Loyd Lafevers commit the crimes but did nothing
to stop them. However, the state argued and the jury found that Cannon
played a more direct role in Hawley's death.

Cannon also pleaded no contest to charges related to the June 25, 1985,
beatings of an 81-year-old woman and her granddaughter. Prosecutors
allege Cannon and Lafevers, who was executed in January 2001, assaulted
and robbed two other women around the same time.

Cannon appealed to the Supreme Court Monday, arguing that justices' June
ruling requiring that juries not judges hand down death sentences
indirectly affected his case.

That ruling reinstated an older case requiring that every fact-finding
decision in a trial be made beyond a reasonable doubt, said Cannon's
attorney Jack Fisher.

That means juries applying capital punishment must find that aggravating
factors in support of death outweigh beyond a reasonable doubt mitigating
ones against death, Fisher said. Oklahoma's standard only requires that
one outweigh the other, he said.

But justices, who were asked to apply that ruling retroactively to older
cases like Cannon's, declined to hear the case.

About a dozen relatives of Hawley and Cannon's other victims came to
McAlester to witness Cannon's execution, the 1st held since the state
changed the time from 9 p.m. Only Fisher and his wife came for Cannon.

Cannon ate his last meal about noon while he waited to hear if the
Supreme Court would grant his stay.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-0 on July 9 to deny Cannon's
request for clemency.

The state executed David Wayne Woodruff on Jan. 31 for the 1985 killing
of an Oklahoma City jeweler. Woodruff's accomplice was executed Jan. 29.

On June 25, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted convicted
killer David Jay Brown a 30-day reprieve after he alleged that
prosecutors withheld information supporting his defense. Brown was to be
executed that night for the 1988 murder of his former father-in-law.

Cannon becomes the 51st condemned inmate to be put to death since the
state resumed capital punishment in 1990.

Cannon also becomes the 37th condemned inmate to be put to death this
year in the USA and the 786th overall since America resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)

Date of Birth : 04/21/1960.  I'm 5'11", blonde hair, blue eyes, divorced, I have a
19 yrs daughter, 8 month old granddaughter, I've been locked up since 1985
on Death Row.  I like to read books, listen to music, watch TV, "exercise",
I like watching football, baseball, hockey, tennis, gymnastics, swimming,
auto racing, etc...I draw from time to time, used to crochet, as well as work
with plastic canvas, occasionally.  The only things we can have mailed to us
are "books-magazines, photos, money orders"  the books, magazines have
to be sent by the bookstore / publisher !  The photos cannot be Polaroid's
and of course the money orders have to have inmate name and number !
I don't have any photos of myself,  I haven't bought any in a long time.
These people charge $1.50 each.  But if someone wants one I'll try to take one.
I also like poetry !    Thank you sincerely,

                       Randall E. Cannon  152263
                                      H-SW  4-J
                                    PO BOX  97
                       McALESTER,  OKLAHOMA
                                    74502-0097

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