Oklahoma executed a man Thursday for the torture slaying of his girlfriend’s
3-year-old son in 1993, the third of four scheduled executions in the U.S. over a two-day stretch.
With Richard Stephen Fairchild’s execution, the state has now put to death seven people since it resumed carrying out executions in October 2021. In that time, Oklahoma has carried out more executions than neighboring Texas, which since 1976 has executed far more people than any other state.
More than half of the 40 people currently on Oklahoma’s death row have
execution dates set over the next two years after the state Court of
Criminal Appeals issued a moratorium in 2015 following a botched
execution and two drug mix-ups in the death chamber.
Fairchild’s execution was the 16th in the U.S. this year — including one in Texas and one in Arizona on Wednesday — up from last year’s three-decade low of 11. An execution was also scheduled for later Thursday in Alabama.