OKLAHOMA LAST MEAL
FRANK WELCH
August 21, 2007

Last Meal: Welch had a final meal request of a large super supreme pizza and a two-liter bottle of Coke.

The skinny: Welch was executed for a 1987 rape and murder that had gone unsolved for 10 years.

More skinny: The nude body of the 28-year old victim was discovered by her husband in the living room their Norman residence.

The woman, who was four months pregnant, was bound with leather straps and duct tape causing her death by strangulation. A child's plastic toy was found inserted in her vagina, and tears were noted by the medical examiner in her rectum and vagina.

Welch entered the home by posing as a cable television repairman, having lost his job the day before. The case went unsolved until 10 years later when Welch’s DNA was matched to a similar crime scene in the 10-year-old unsolved murder case of a woman, whose nude body was also discovered in her family’s home outside Tuttle less than three months after the Norman death.

Welch was serving time in prison for attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping in 1997 when he was linked by DNA to the killings of both women.

Welch admitted to the murder in a letter earlier this year to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board.

Last words and such: While strapped to a gurney in the death chamber at the McAlester, Oklahoma, Welch apologized for his crimes. "There is nothing that can change the horrible thing I done," Welch said. "There is nothing that can change that. I take full responsibility for what I done. I am truly, truly sorry for all the hurt and pain I have caused you. I take full responsibility for what I've done. There's no excuse for it. There never was."

As the lethal combination of drugs flowed into Welch's arm, one of his brothers, who was in an adjacent viewing room, began having breathing problems and collapsed to the floor. Prison medical personnel attended to him, but he refused to be taken to a hospital in an ambulance.

Factoids: Welch was the...

34th murderer executed in U.S. in 2007
1091st murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
2nd murderer executed in Oklahoma in 2007
86th murderer executed in Oklahoma since 1976