June 15 – Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond asks a state board to deny clemency for a man scheduled to be executed later this month.
A Washita County jury sentenced Richard Rojem to death for the July 1984 death of 7-year-old Layla Cummings, along with two 1,000-year prison terms for rape and kidnapping.
Rojem, 66, is scheduled to be executed June 27 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
The Oklahoma State Pardon and Parole Board will hold a clemency hearing for Rojem on June 17.
“Layla Cummings’ family has waited 40 years for justice. Her killer is a true monster who deserves the same absence of mercy he showed to the child he brutally murdered,” Drummond said in a statement. “I urge the Pardon and Parole Board to deny the inmate’s absurd request for clemency and ensure that justice is done for Layla.”
Evidence presented at trial shows that Cummings was kidnapped from her home in the early morning hours of July 7, 1984. Her body was found in a field later that morning by a farmer.
The medical examiner testified that Cummings suffered contributions from two large stab wounds to the neck and additional stab wounds were found on the body, while the examination also found injuries consistent with forcible rape, according to court records.
Investigators linked Rojem to the murder after learning that he had recently separated from the child’s mother and learned from a relative about the mother’s work schedule and that the home’s lock was broken.
According to court records, a beer cup with Rojem’s fingerprint was found 25 feet away from the home on the morning of the disappearance, with video evidence showing Rojem being at a local bar the night before that served beer in the same cups.
A search of Rojem’s apartment found used condoms that matched the brand of condom wrapper found near the girl’s body. The brand was sold in a restroom dispenser at the bar where Rojem was with a video showing the man entering the restroom before leaving the bar, court documents state.
During questioning, Rojem told police he left the bar when it closed and drove slowly to the Burns Flat Superette, a distance of 25 miles, arriving at 1:10 a.m. on July 7.
Rojem’s first conviction was thrown out by the state appeals court due to a problem with jury instructions. A new jury sentenced Rojem to death in 2003. That sentence was also dismissed due to an error during the jury selection process.
He was sentenced to death again by a Washita County jury in 2007, while his appeal in 2017 was exhausting.
The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office asked OCCA to schedule Rojem for execution after a Pittsburg County judge ruled that death row inmate Wade Lay was incompetent for execution. The request was also made after OCCA agreed to the AG’s office’s request to institute executions at 90-day intervals to reduce pressure on state corrections staff.
Rojem was originally scheduled to be executed in October 2023 under an earlier schedule that was later changed due to scheduling requests from the AG’s office.
