Okla. Man Executed For Killing Student

(AP)  An Oklahoma man was executed Tuesday for throwing a firebomb that killed a university student from Japan more than 10 years ago .

Terry Lyn Short was injected with a lethal combination of three chemicals at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m., Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said.

A short, round-faced man wearing large glasses, Short was strapped to a stainless steel gurney and covered with a white sheet when the curtains were raised inside the execution chamber, allowing about a dozen witnesses to see him.

Short raised his head and acknowledged the presence of several family members, but declined an opportunity to deliver his last words into a microphone that dangled over his head.

"I have nothing to say," Short said.

Short's sister, Trina Hartshorn, sobbed quietly as the execution got under way.

Short appeared to stop breathing, and the color slowly drained from his face as he laid still on the gurney.

"We had good conversations, and he had peace with God," Hartshorn said after the execution. "He's in a better place."

The 47-year-old Short was the first person executed in Oklahoma since Aug. 21.

Executions had been put on hold across the country as the U.S. Supreme Court considered a challenge to the lethal injection procedure.

Short was convicted of killing 22-year-old Ken Yamamoto more than 13 years ago. Yamamoto lived one floor above Short's ex-girlfriend and died after Short threw a gasoline-filled bottle into her apartment that ignited the building.

Investigators believe Yamamoto, a senior art major at Oklahoma City University, was sleeping when the blaze erupted in the early morning hours on Jan. 8, 1995, at the Royal Chateau Apartments in south Oklahoma City. By the time he awoke and tried to escape, the entire unit was engulfed in flames.

When rescue workers reached Yamamoto, his body was covered with severe burns. He died less than two days later at an Oklahoma City hospital.

Robert Hines, who was in the downstairs apartment with Short's ex-girlfriend, suffered severe burns over much of his arms and upper body. Hines witnessed the execution and said he felt justice was served.

"I'm sure he's going to pay for it now, wherever he goes," said Hines, who said he endured months of agonizing medical treatment and four operations as a result of the burns.

"I went through months of suffering, skin grafts. He (Short) doesn't know what I went through."

Yamamoto came to Oklahoma as an exchange student from Japan in 1989 and graduated high school in Del City, an Oklahoma City suburb.

His host family in high school remembered Yamamoto as a hardworking, dedicated student who was shy when he first arrived in Oklahoma, but quickly learned English and grew to love America.

"He bleached his hair blonde. He wore stars-and-stripes shirts. He loved rock 'n' roll," Myles Martin, Yamamoto's host brother, said during a clemency hearing last month. "He did not deserve to die, and what a horrible way to die."

[bbirdsr71]

NEXT!

[barbaram99]

Keithle,I use to be against the death penalty. They don''t care if they live or die. Love to hear crzmeat on this but we have not heard from him here. No tears. He wrote his ticket and put himself there. I would say they put him to humanely but the fool did not the person he kilt, An Aerican or an ex American in my eye.

[samael2014]

You know, I thought I remembered another case of a Japanese exchange student who actually was murdered point blank in cold blood. Of course "justice" for the family of the victim was served then as it was now, American-style. This is part of the story from 1993:

First among them them is "Freeze!," the command that Yoshihiro Hattori, the Japanese high school student, apparently did not know when he approached a gun-wielding homeowner in a Baton Rouge suburb last October, in search of a Halloween party.

The homeowner, Rodney Peairs, was acquitted last month under a Louisiana law that allows citizens to use deadly force in protecting themselves from intruders, a law that puzzles many Japanese. Mr. Peairs said he and his wife feared that Mr. Hattori, who was wearing a Halloween costume, was coming into their house and would threaten their lives.

Again, the taste of bile and vomit in my mouth can hardly express just how impressed I am with "one nation under God" American justice.

Posted by samael2014 at 06:14 PM : Jun 18, 2008

BTW: Yoshihiro Hattori was 16 years old.

[samael2014]

You know, I thought I remembered another case of a Japanese exchange student who actually was murdered point blank in cold blood. Of course "justice" for the family of the victim was served then as it was now, American-style. This is part of the story from 1993:

First among them them is "Freeze!," the command that Yoshihiro Hattori, the Japanese high school student, apparently did not know when he approached a gun-wielding homeowner in a Baton Rouge suburb last October, in search of a Halloween party.

The homeowner, Rodney Peairs, was acquitted last month under a Louisiana law that allows citizens to use deadly force in protecting themselves from intruders, a law that puzzles many Japanese. Mr. Peairs said he and his wife feared that Mr. Hattori, who was wearing a Halloween costume, was coming into their house and would threaten their lives.

Again, the taste of bile and vomit in my mouth can hardly express just how impressed I am with "one nation under God" American justice.

[edgardebbins]

Bad deal for the murder victim. Tough way to go. Glad to hear the murderer will not be causing us any more trouble. Capital punishment is wonderful and we could use a lot more of it.

[reedtaz73]

we need to go back to town square executions. we neede o executethe same way the murder was committed.

Guess you''re all for lynchings, ethnic cleansing, and genocide as well. Who set off that emp is your brain tootall?

[patriot12436]

maxify55
I couldn'' have said it better myself.

[tootall10142]

Im just sorry that the tax payer had to feed this idiot for ten years before we could rid of this idiot.we need to go back to town square executions. we neede o executethe same way the murder was committed.45 seconds on a gurney and a shot in my opinion is too easy a way to let these people die.

[patriot12436]

prometheus41
I thought you were a christain, such language. I guess i have been in a better place than you.

[edward1975-2009]

Some crimes just call for that person/persons losing their live on the planet card. If we truly wished to make the death penalty a deterrent, we would publicly hold executions. Countries who do this have next to no violent crimes. Let people see how a person truly dies, not this putting your dog to sleep thing we do now.