Terry Lynn Short Executed!

OKLAHOMA----execution

Terry Lyn Short executed


An Oklahoma man convicted of killing a university student from Japan by throwing a firebomb into his apartment complex has been put to death.

Terry Lyn Short was injected with a lethal combination of three chemicals Tuesday evening at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie says Short was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m.

The 47-year-old Short was the 1st person executed in Oklahoma since Aug. 21, when Frank Duane Welch was executed for the killing of a Norman woman.

Executions had been put on hold across the country for part of the 10 months in between as the U.S. Supreme Court considered a challenge to the lethal injection procedure.

Short was convicted of killing 22-year-old Ken Yamamoto in 1995. Yamamoto lived one floor above Short's ex-girlfriend and died after Short threw a gasoline-filled bottle into her apartment that ignited the building.

Short becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death in Oklahoma this year and the 87th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1990. Only Texas (406) and Virginia (99) have executed more inmates since the death penalty was re-legalized in the US on July 2, 1976.

Short becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1106th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)