An Oklahoma inmate won a 30-day stay of execution Wednesday barely 24 hours before his scheduled death for a murder 15 years ago. The stay, granted by Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin, came in anticipation of DNA tests on recovered evidence that could either clear Robert William Clayton or support his conviction. Clayton, 39, was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 9 p.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was convicted of the 1985 murder of Rhonda Kay Timmons, 19, at a Tulsa apartment complex. Fallin granted the stay in the absence of Gov. Frank Keating, who was in Florida for the college national championship football game between Oklahoma and Florida State. Keating spokesman Phil Bacharach said the governor supported Fallin's decision. "The attorneys in October had asked for DNA testing of certain evidence that wasn't frankly recovered until today," Bacharach said. "This will simply allow that DNA testing to be done." Defense attorney James Hankins of Enid said the recovered evidence included a knife as well as a bloody sock and overalls Clayton purportedly wore during the crime. The evidence was to be examined by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. The stay stopped what would have been the 1st of a record 8 executions set for January in Oklahoma. Clayton, who has maintained his innocence, could eventually go free if DNA tests on blood on the sock, knife and overalls prove it did not belong to Timmons, Hankins said. "The state's whole theory of the case was that Robert Clayton murdered this Timmons woman and that he was wearing the socks and the overalls," he said. Prosecutors relied on blood typing - the blood type on the evidence matched Timmons' - to argue for conviction, Hankins said. The state Pardon and Parole Board denied Clayton's clemency request in late November. Hankins had requested a 60-day reprieve, the maximum allowed in Oklahoma and a federal appeal was pending Wednesday. Clayton was an apartment complex groundskeeper convicted of killing Timmons on June 25, 1985. Timmons was stabbed repeatedly and suffered a skull fracture. Prosecutors said during his trial that Clayton came upon Timmons as she was sunbathing. He beat her and stabbed her 13 times before strangling her with her bathing suit top. Timmons' husband, Bill, found her in front of their infant son's crib after he came home for lunch. The inside of the couple's apartment was covered in blood, authorities said. The child is now 16. A court reporter and the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office disagreed on who was responsible for keeping up with the evidence. Hankins said he was told the evidence was found at the Tulsa Police Department. "It would be comical if it wasn't pathetic," Hankins said before the reprieve was granted. Hankins has said Clayton had a low IQ and mental capacity. Clayton's family members, who traveled from Mississippi for his clemency hearing, said they do not believe he was capable of such an act. Timmons' family said Clayton was undeserving of clemency. UPDATE: Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin lifted the stay of execution for convicted killer Robert William Clayton on 1/19/01, three days after officials said DNA evidence confirmed Clayton’s guilt. Attorney General Drew Edmondson asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to reschedule Clayton’s execution for Feb. 6. Fallin granted the 30-day stay Jan. 3, hours before Clayton, 39, was scheduled to be executed for killing Rhonda Kay Timmons, 19, at her Tulsa apartment on June 25, 1985. Fallin approved the stay after learning that misplaced evidence had been found in an evidence locker in the Tulsa County district attorney’s office. The evidence included a bloody sock, overalls and a knife. The DNA testing was done by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. The OSBI compared a blood stain on the sock worn by Clayton with samples of Timmons’ hair, Edmondson said. The blood on the sock matched the DNA profile of Timmons’ hair samples. The overalls had no blood stains on them because Clayton had washed them after the crime, Edmondson said. He said testimony at the trial was that the sock had fallen next to the washing machine. Clayton’s attorneys had asked for the DNA testing in October and December but the evidence was missing. Gov. Frank Keating, who was in Florida attending the Orange Bowl, agreed with Fallin’s decision to issue the stay until testing could be completed. Tulsa District Judge Linda Morrissey authorized another DNA test to be completed by Jan. 29 by a California laboratory. Edmondson said he doesn’t expect a different result. Clayton was a groundskeeper at the South Glen Apartments where Timmons lived when she was killed. She was stabbed 12 times in the chest, neck, side and arms and suffered a fractured skull and large bruise on the back of her head.

Jack Clark was sentenced to die for the rape and stabbing murder of 23-year-old Melisa Ann Garcia in October of 1989. Clark, a transient, told police he spotted Melissa at a telephone booth, asked her for a light for his cigarette, then stabbed her in the shoulder before forcing her into her car. She drove to an abandoned area, where she was raped and stabbed through the heart. In a brief final statement while strapped to the death chamber gurney, Clark expressed remorse and prayed. "I would like to say to the family that I am sorry and I do ask their forgiveness," he said as five members of his victim's family stood a few feet away watching through a window. He invited people to attend his funeral Mass and then recited a short prayer, closing with the words "peace and goodness." He sputtered and gasped slightly before slipping into unconsciousness. He was pronounced death at 6:27 p.m., 9 minutes after the lethal drugs started flowing. "If we confess our sins, He is just and true to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness," Clark said. Gov. Rick Perry, in his 1st execution case since succeeding President-elect Bush 3 weeks ago, cleared the way for the execution when he rejected Clark's request for clemency. Clark, 37, led police to the body of 23-year-old Melisa Ann Garcia of Slaton, saying he spotted her body in some tall weeds off a highway while making a U-turn. "But the way he described the scene, he almost had to be the murderer," Rebecca Atchley, the former assistant prosecutor in Lubbock who tried Clark, said. Clark was arrested and confessed to the murder but insisted from death row he was innocent. "I know I didn't do that," Clark said in an interview last week. "I know for a fact I didn't rape that girl. Never happened." Recent DNA tests on evidence tied him to the crime scene. Clark contended the evidence was planted. Garcia was making a telephone call outside a convenience store the early hours of Oct. 15, 1989, when Clark approached her and asked if she had a light for a cigarette. When she finished her call, testimony showed he stabbed her in the shoulder, forced her into her own car, drove away and repeatedly raped her before fatally stabbing her in the heart. Clark said he signed his confession in frustration. "I was truly seeking a way out," he said. Clark, brandishing a knife at officers, was arrested following a brief highway police chase a few weeks after he told officers he spotted the body. "There was no possible way this guy could have seen the body," said former Lubbock District Attorney Travis Ware, who went to the murder scene. "Sometimes these guys will commit a crime like this and get to be the hero by discovering the body. That apparently was what he was up to. "Melisa Ann Garcia was a totally innocent victim of circumstance." While in the county jail, Clark bragged about the rape and murder to another inmate, who testified against him at his trial. Evidence also showed Clark was a military deserter, was accused of assaulting and attempting to rape a relative, threatening child welfare workers, neglecting and abusing his children and of threatening and assaultive behavior toward neighbors. He also had a history of making weapons while in jail, trying to intimidate guards and fighting with inmates. Garcia's death was not the 1st murder tragedy for her family. Her 69-year-old grandmother, Elizabeth Alvarado, was beaten to death during a robbery at her home a year before Garcia was killed. The man convicted of that killing, Adolph Gil Hernandez, is set for execution next month. "We have been waiting so long for this day to come," Josie Vargas, Garcia's aunt and Alvarado's daughter, told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. "It's been terrible. I don't know how we survived." "That made this case really tragic," Atchley said. "2 victims of vicious murders in one family. It's very horrific."

On Friday, February 13, 1987, Trice spent most of the day drinking with his roommate, Archie Landon, and Landon's brother Walter. Trice and Archie Landon returned to their apartment between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. Archie fell asleep on the couch and did not see Trice again until early the next morning. At some point later that evening, Trice left the apartment and drove to a house occupied by Ernestine Jones, an 84-year-old woman, and her 63-year-old, mentally retarded son Emanuel. Trice parked one block away, then walked to the Jones' house and entered through a bedroom window on the northwest side of the house. Once inside, Trice severely beat Ernestine Jones with a set of nunchucks (or nunchakus, a martial arts weapon comprised of two pieces of wood attached by a string or chain) and raped her before making off with $500. Ernestine, who was only 5' 1" tall and weighed 105 pounds, suffered a fracture to one of her eye sockets, fractures to both her lower and upper jaw, neck injuries, a crushed rib cage, internal bruises to her heart and lungs, two broken fingers, extensive bruises in the genital area, and scratches in the vaginal canal and cervix area. Although an autopsy suggested Ernestine likely survived for several hours after the attack, she ultimately died of the multiple blunt force injuries to her head, neck, and chest. Ernestine's 63-year-old retarded son, Emanuel Jones, was also severely beaten after attempting to come to his mother's aid, according to police. Trice's roommate called police after Trice returned home with a lot of money and claimed to have whipped a homosexual with his nunchakus. The roommate said Trice had hidden his bloody clothes in a nearby abandoned house. Trice was arrested 4 days after the murder and later confessed, said Oklahoma City police inspector Eric Mullenix. He was sentenced to death in June 1987. "I have not the words to describe the brutality and savagery of what I observed in the crime scene," Mullenix wrote in October to oppose clemency for Trice. Mullenix said Trice never showed remorse. The state Pardon and Parole Board rejected the clemency request in November. Jurors ruled that the death penalty was warranted because the crime met 4 of 8 aggravating circumstances. Trice had a previous felony conviction involving the use of threat of violence and knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person during the crime. Jurors also said the killing was a heinous, atrocious or cruel act and deemed Trice a continuing threat to society.