OKLAHOMA LAST MEAL
TYRONE DARKS
January 13, 2004

...jelly beans AND red licorice...2004, year of the candy?

Last meal: six extra crispy chicken breasts, six rolls, one bag of jelly beans, a bag of red licorice, six lemon-glazed doughnuts and six cream sodas.

The skinny: Darks, 39, was executed for the murder of his wife. Her death ended a violent relationship between the couple, whose marriage soured after only six months.

Oklahoma City police responded to more than a dozen domestic calls from the couple during their brief marriage and both sought and were granted protective orders against each other.

Just before 3 p.m. on the day of her death, the wife placed a frantic 911 call to police, saying Darks had run her car off the road and had taken their son, then 2.

Officers had arranged to meet the wife at Darks' residence but she never showed up.

A man summoned police after finding Goodlow slumped over in the front seat of her Ford Mustang in high brush. She had been shot six times, suffering wounds to the arm, chest and head.

The child was later found unharmed.

Legal Machinations: Only hours earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 5 to 4, had vacated a stay of execution granted last week by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Darks’ attorney, Leslie Delk, had argued that Oklahoma’s use of lethal injection was barred under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as cruel and unusual punishment.

Before the last words...With the appointed time of execution only minutes away, Darks’ mother arrived in rapturous distress, her anguished cries echoing up and down the halls of H-Unit: “Glory, glory, glory. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Bless you God. Thank you for the mountains, thank you for the valleys. Nobody can take my joy. I love you, God. Rejoice when a saint comes home, when a sinner leaves. I just magnify God. Glory.”

Last words and such: The 39-year-old told his family he loved them and urged them to take care of themselves but didn't acknowledge his in-laws.

"I'll see y'all later. This is it. It's over," he said as his mother, yelled "Praise the Lord! Praise God!" "Do what y'all can for Scott and Darrell. Time to go home," he said. Scott is his 11-year-old son. "I'll see y'all later. This is it. It's over." he said as his mother cried, unconsolable.

After the last words: After Darks was pronounced dead and the curtain lowered, his mother walked to the window separating them, raised her hands and yelled, "I love you baby, I love you.

"You (God) let me see him come into the world and you let me see him go.

"He will not burn in hell for a sin he did not commit."

Factoids: Darks also was sentenced to a year in federal prison after trying to defraud a compensation fund for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He said his wife died in the World Trade Center collapse.

He also wrote a fake letter made to look like a sworn affidavit from an executed inmate, claiming that inmate had been the real killer of Darks' wife.

Darks was the....

4th murderer executed in U.S. in 2004
889th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st murderer executed in Oklahoma in 2004
70th murderer executed in Oklahoma since 1976