Oklahoma executes man for 2001 slayings of 2 hotel workers

By SEAN MURPHY
Associated Press

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma has executed a man for the brutal slayings of two hotel workers during a robbery in 2001. Forty-six-year-old Donald Grant received a lethal injection Thursday morning at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was declared dead at 10:16 a.m. During a clemency hearing in November, Grant admitted killing Brenda McElyea and Felicia Suzette Smith so that there would be no witnesses to his robbery of the Del City hotel. Court records show both women were shot and stabbed, and Smith was also bludgeoned. Grant expressed “deep, sincere remorse” and apologized for the killings, but the state’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 against recommending clemency.