By AP
McAlester, OK – Oklahoma inmate executed for 1995 slaying
MCALESTER, Okla. (AP) An Oklahoma death row inmate was executed yesterday for the 1995 slaying of a convenience store worker who prosecutors said was brutally beaten with a baseball bat.
A spokesman for the state Department of Corrections said that 39-year-old Billy Don Alverson was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Alverson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die for the Feb, 26, 1995, death of 30-year-old Richard Yost, the night manager of a convenience store in Tulsa. Yost's body was found bound and beaten on the blood-soaked floor of the store's cooler.
Kenneth England, spokesman for the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, says Alverson's execution was the first in the U.S. in the new year. England said that 17 other executions are scheduled across the nation, including another one in Oklahoma next week, England said.