The longest-serving man on Mississippi’s death row was executed nearly five decades after his arrest for murder and ransom.
Richard Jordan, 79, was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, June 25, at Mississippi State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison farm, according to the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC).
The execution procedures for Jordan, a Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, began at 6 p.m. local time, and he was pronounced dead 16 minutes later, the department said.
According to the MDOC, Jordan was the state’s longest-serving death row inmate at the time of his execution. He was also the oldest.
Jordan’s execution on June 25 was ordered by the Mississippi Supreme Court on May 1, following several denied appeals by his attorneys, including one to the United States Supreme Court, according to the MDOC. He was one of several people on Mississippi’s death row who sued the state over its three-drug execution protocol, which they claimed was inhumane, according to the Associated Press.
Before his execution, Jordan thanked his lawyers and wife, according to the Associated Press. In a final statement, he said, “First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone for their humane approach to this situation. “I would like to apologise to the victim’s family.”
According to the outlet, his final words were: “I will see you on the other side, all of you.”
He had one last meal with his family before his execution, MDOC commissioner Burl Cain later told reporters.
Jordan was sentenced to death four times for the kidnapping and murder of Edwina Marter, a 35-year-old married mother of two, in Gulfport, Mississippi, 49 years ago, according to the MDOC records. The kidnapping was part of what the Associated Press termed a “violent ransom scheme.”
Jordan called a Gulfport bank on January 13, 1976, and asked to speak with a loan officer. Employees told him that Edwina’s husband, Charles Marter, could speak with him, according to the Associated Press. He then hung up and looked up Charles’ address.
Jordan, posing as an electrical repairman, went to the loan officer’s house and kidnapped Edwina, who was there with her 3-year-old son, at gunpoint, according to the MDOC.
Jordan then took the mother of two to a forest, where he shot and killed her before falsely claiming she was unharmed in order to demand $25,000 in ransom, according to the Associated Press.
Before Jordan was executed, one of Edwina’s sons, Eric Marter, told the Associated Press that “it should have happened a long time ago.”
Eric, who was 11 years old when his mother was killed, continued, “I am not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
Edwina’s family also released a statement, which a spokesperson read on their behalf at a press conference following the execution.
“Nothing will bring back our mother, sister, and friend. Nothing can ever change what Jordan took from us 49 years ago, according to the spokesperson. “Jordan tried desperately to change his decision so that he could simply die in prison. We never had the option. He took Edwina’s life without thinking about the many people who loved and relied on her. He took her away from us without thinking about us.”
“Why should he get to live in prison and die of natural causes?” the spokesperson asked. “We feel that he should have to endure the suffering of knowing his death was only hours away, just like Edwina had to endure.”
According to the spokesperson, Edwina’s sons, who are now 52 and 59 years old, “may forgive him, but it does not change what they had to miss for 49 years.”
