Oklahoma Prepares to Execute Man Convicted in 2006 Double Drive-By Killing

According to Rokna, citing NBC News, Kendrick Simpson, 45, was found guilty in the killings of 19-year-old Anthony Jones and 20-year-old Glen Palmer, who were fatally shot following a dispute at a nightclub in Oklahoma City. His execution, scheduled for Thursday, would mark the first in Oklahoma this year and the second in the United States.

Simpson was slated to receive a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for the 2006 murders. Prosecutors said the victims were shot after an altercation at a club in northwest Oklahoma City.

Simpson had relocated to Oklahoma City from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. During a clemency hearing last month, he acknowledged responsibility for the killings and expressed remorse. He apologized to the victims’ families as well as to a third individual who was inside the vehicle when Jones and Palmer were shot.

“I apologize for murdering your sons,” Simpson said at the hearing. “I offer no excuses. I do not blame anyone else, and they did not deserve what happened.”

Despite his statement of remorse, Oklahoma’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board narrowly rejected his request for clemency. On Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, denying a last-minute appeal to halt the execution without comment.

Simpson’s legal team argued that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder linked to repeated trauma during his childhood in a New Orleans public housing complex. In their clemency petition, his attorneys wrote that he was deserving of mercy and compassion, asserting that capital punishment should be reserved for the most egregious crimes and offenders, and that Simpson’s case did not meet that standard.

According to prosecutors, on the night of the January 2006 shooting, Simpson placed an assault-style rifle in the trunk of a vehicle driven by him and his friends to a club in northwest Oklahoma City. After a confrontation inside the club between Simpson and Palmer, authorities said Simpson and his companions followed Palmer and Jones from a nearby gas station. Simpson allegedly leaned out of the vehicle and fired approximately 20 rounds into their car, striking both victims multiple times.

Some relatives of the victims urged the board to allow the execution to proceed. In a letter to the panel, Palmer’s sister, Crystal Allison, wrote that Simpson had made his choice and that her family now stood by theirs, stating that they wanted him executed for taking her brother’s life.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond praised the board’s decision to deny clemency, describing Simpson as a “ruthless and violent killer who hunted his victims without remorse.”

Oklahoma carries out executions using a three-drug protocol: the sedative midazolam, followed by vecuronium bromide to stop breathing, and potassium chloride to induce cardiac arrest.

If carried out, Simpson’s execution would be the second in the United States this year. Earlier in the week, Florida executed Ronald Palmer Heath by lethal injection for the 1989 murder of a traveling salesman he and his brother encountered at a bar in Gainesville. Florida set a state record with 19 executions in 2025.

Nationwide, 47 executions were conducted in 2025, with Florida leading after Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed numerous death warrants. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas each carried out five executions, tying for second place.

Florida is scheduled to perform the next execution in the country on Tuesday, when Melvin Trotter is set to receive a lethal injection for the killing of a grocery store owner during a robbery.