Oklahoma executes man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing 7-year-old girl in 1984

Associated Press

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma has executed a man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 7-year-old girl in 1984. Sixty-six-year-old Richard Rojem was given a lethal injection Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Prison officials say he was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m. Rojem had denied responsibility for killing his former stepdaughter, Layla Cummings. The child’s mutilated and partially clothed body was discovered in a field in rural Washita County near the town of Burns Flat. She had been stabbed to death. Rojem said during a clemency hearing this month that he wasn’t responsible for the girl’s death.