A man who admitted to killing two men in a drive-by shooting in 2006 was executed on Thursday in Oklahoma, the state’s first execution this year.
Kendrick Simpson, 45, was pronounced dead at 10:19 CT after receiving a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, according to prison officials. He was found guilty of killing Anthony Jones, 19, and Glen Palmer, 20, by shooting into their car during an altercation at an Oklahoma City nightclub.
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Simpson confessed to the crimes at a clemency hearing last month after fleeing to Oklahoma City from the ravaged city of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He apologized to the victims’ families and a third man who was in the car with Jones and Palmer when they were shot.
“I apologize for murdering your sons,” Simpson said at the hearing. “I don’t make any excuses. I don’t blame others, and they didn’t deserve what happened to them.”
Despite his apology, the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board narrowly denied Simpson clemency.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a late request to stop the execution Wednesday afternoon without comment.
Simpson’s attorneys claimed that he suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of continuous trauma throughout his childhood years in a New Orleans housing project.
“Kendrick is a man worthy of your mercy and compassion,” his attorneys wrote in his clemency application. “The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the worst of the worst offenses and offenders. Kendrick and his case represent neither.”
According to prosecutors, Simpson had an assault rifle in the trunk of a vehicle he and his pals drove to a bar in northwest Oklahoma City on the night of the murder in January 2006. Following a confrontation between Simpson and Palmer at the club, prosecutors claim Simpson and his associates followed Palmer and Jones from a nearby gas station, where Simpson put the gun out the window and fired around 20 shots into their car. Both victims were shot several times.
Some of the victims’ family members told the board that they supported his execution.
“Do I believe this man should live and be able to breathe and take out the rest of his life behind a cell?” Palmer’s sister, Crystal Allison, wrote in a letter to the panel. “He made the choice for him so I stand here today to make the choice for my family. Yes, we would like to see him executed for what he did — he executed my brother.”
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond praised the board for refusing Simpson clemency, describing him as a “ruthless and violent killer who hunted his victims without remorse.”
The state uses the sedative midazolam, followed by vecuronium bromide to cease breathing and potassium chloride to stop the heart.
Simpson’s execution was set to be the second this year in the United States. Florida, which set a state record of 19 executions in 2025, executed Ronald Palmer Heath on Tuesday with a three-drug injection for his role in the 1989 murder of a traveling salesman he and his brother met at a Gainesville bar.
47 people were killed in the United States in 2025, with Florida leading the way with a slew of execution warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas tied for second place that year, with five executions each.
The next execution in the United States is slated for Tuesday in Florida, when Melvin Trotter will be executed via lethal injection for the murder of a grocery store owner during a heist.
