{"id":15122,"date":"2025-06-26T02:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T02:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/15122\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T02:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T02:32:10","slug":"mississippis-longest-serving-death-row-inmate-is-set-to-be-executed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/15122\/","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate is set to be executed"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARCHMAN, Miss. (AP) \u2014 The longest-serving man on Mississippi\u2019s death row<\/a> was executed Wednesday, nearly five decades after he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer\u2019s wife in a violent ransom scheme.<\/p>\n

Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder whose final appeals were denied without comment by the U.S. Supreme Court, was sentenced to death in 1976 for killing and kidnapping Edwina Marter. He died by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. <\/p>\n

The execution began at 6 p.m., according to prison officials. Jordan lay on the gurney with his mouth slightly ajar and took several deep breaths before becoming still. The time of death was given as 6:16 p.m. <\/p>\n

Jordan was one of several on the state\u2019s death row who sued the state over its three-drug execution protocol<\/a>, claiming it is inhumane.<\/p>\n

When given an opportunity to make a final statement Wednesday, he said, \u201cFirst I would like to thank everyone for a humane way of doing this. I want to apologize to the victim\u2019s family.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also thanked his lawyers and his wife and asked for forgiveness. His last words were: \u201cI will see you on the other side, all of you.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s wife, Marsha Jordan, witnessed the execution, along with his lawyer Krissy Nobile and a spiritual adviser, the Rev. Tim Murphy. His wife and lawyer dabbed their eyes several times.<\/p>\n

During a news conference after the execution, Keith Degruy, a spokesperson for Marter\u2019s family, read a statement on behalf of her two sons and husband, who were not present at the execution. <\/p>\n

\u201cNothing will bring back our mom, sister and our friend. Nothing can ever change what Jordan took from us 49 years ago. Jordan tried desperately to change his ruling so he can simply die in prison. We never had an option,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s execution was the third in the state in the last 10 years; previously the most recent one<\/a> was carried out in December 2022. It came a day after a man was put to death in Florida<\/a>, in what is shaping up to be a year with the most executions<\/a> since 2015. <\/p>\n

Mississippi Supreme Court records show that in January 1976, Jordan called the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport and asked to speak with a loan officer. After he was told that Charles Marter could speak to him, he hung up. He then looked up the Marters\u2019 home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter. <\/p>\n

According to court records, Jordan took her to a forest and fatally shot her before calling her husband, claiming she was safe and demanding $25,000.<\/p>\n

Eric Marter, who was 11 when his mother was killed, told The Associated Press before the execution that other family members would attend. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt should have happened a long time ago,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needs to be punished,\u201d Marter said. <\/p>\n

As of the beginning of the year, Jordan was one of 22 people sentenced in the 1970s who were still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.<\/p>\n

His execution ended a decades-long court process that included four trials and numerous appeals. On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected a petition that argued he was denied due process rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was never given what for a long time the law has entitled him to, which is a mental health professional that is independent of the prosecution and can assist his defense,\u201d said lawyer Krissy Nobile, director of Mississippi\u2019s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, who represented Jordan. \u201cBecause of that his jury never got to hear about his Vietnam experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent petition asking Gov. Tate Reeves for clemency<\/a> echoed Nobile\u2019s claim. It said Jordan suffered severe PTSD after serving three back-to-back tours, which could have been a factor in his crime. Reeves denied the request. <\/p>\n

\u201cHis war service, his war trauma, was considered not relevant in his murder trial,\u201d said Franklin Rosenblatt, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, who wrote the petition on Jordan\u2019s behalf. \u201cWe just know so much more than we did 10 years ago, and certainly during Vietnam, about the effect of war trauma on the brain and how that affects ongoing behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eric Marter said he does not buy that argument: \u201cI know what he did. He wanted money, and he couldn\u2019t take her with him. And he \u2014 so he did what he did.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARCHMAN, Miss. (AP) \u2014 The longest-serving man on Mississippi\u2019s death row was executed Wednesday, nearly five decades after…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[13214,15331,15341,4219,15332,15334,15339,57,15340,362,15338,773,15337,50,15330,15333,15335,61,67,132,68,15336],"class_list":{"0":"post-15122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-asia-pacific","10":"tag-capital-punishment","11":"tag-charles-marter","12":"tag-crime","13":"tag-edwina-marter","14":"tag-eric-marter","15":"tag-franklin-rosenblatt","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-keith-degruy","18":"tag-legal-proceedings","19":"tag-marsha-jordan","20":"tag-mississippi","21":"tag-ms-state-wire","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-richard-gerald-jordan","24":"tag-tate-reeves","25":"tag-tim-murphy","26":"tag-u-s-news","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-vietnam"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114747326071629287","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}