March 20 (UPI) -- Oklahoma executed Wendell Grissom Thursday in the state's first execution of 2025.
He was declared dead by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at 10:13 a.m.
His legal team had argued he should not be eligible for capital punishment because he allegedly suffered oxygen deprivation while being born, then had behavioral and emotional problems growing up. He was reportedly further damaged in car and motorcycle accidents as a teenager before leaving school due to "physical and cognitive difficulties."
Grissom's attorneys showed the clemency board CT and MRI scans that demonstrated abnormalities in his brain, but clemency was rejected by a five-person board.
Grissom was convicted of first-degree murder, shooting with intent to kill, grand larceny and possession of a firearm after a felony conviction in a home invasion where he shot and killed one person and shot another several times.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in February that Grissom is a "cruel and evil man whose "fate is sealed with the denial of clemency."
Oklahoma is to next execute John Fitzgerald Hanson, who shot a woman in 1999 after having kidnapped her and took her car. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals is expected to schedule his execution for June.
