Oklahoma man to be executed for rape and murder of his 7-year-old former stepdaughter

An Oklahoma man who was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday for the rape and murder of his 7-year-old former stepdaughter maintains his innocence but has accepted his fate after no appeals were possible, his lawyer told USA TODAY.

Richard Rojem Jr., 66, was found guilty of raping and stabbing Layla Cummings in July 1984. The little girl’s battered body was left in a field.

If the sentence is carried out, Rojem’s execution would be the second in Oklahoma this year and the ninth in the U.S. It also comes just one day after a man in neighboring Texas was executed at 6 p.m. CT on Wednesday.

“There’s really nothing else we can do,” Jack Fisher, Rojem’s attorney, told USA TODAY of his client’s exhausted appeal options. “He’s ready to just move on.”

Rojem, who has been on death row for four decades, had already launched two successful appeals and even managed to avoid execution, which was scheduled for October 5, 2023.

As his execution approaches, USA TODAY looks back at the crime: What led Rojem down a path that ended with Layla’s murder, and what the little girl’s mother is saying now as the execution approaches.

What happened to Layla Cummings?

Layla was abducted on July 6, 1984, from an apartment in Elk City, Oklahoma, where she lived with her mother and 9-year-old brother, according to Oklahoma state court documents. The children’s mother and Rojem’s ex-wife, Mindy Cummings, had left her alone to work a late shift at a local fast-food restaurant.

The next morning, a farmer found Layla’s body in a field about 15 miles from her home in Burns Flat, still wearing her mother’s nightgown.

A medical examiner testified at the trial that Layla died from two large stab wounds to the neck, was stabbed in the vaginal area and suffered other injuries consistent with rape, appeal documents show.

Before the murder, Rojem had been divorced from Layla’s mother for two months, court documents say. He met Mindy Cummings while he was incarcerated in Michigan for sex offenses; she was the sister of his cellmate, court documents say.

According to court documents, Rojem, then 26, knew Cummings’ work hours and knew that the lock on her apartment door was broken.

How did investigators locate Richard Rojem at the scene of Layla Cummings’ murder?

Investigators were able to locate Rojem at the crime scene by finding a beer mug with his fingerprint on it 25 feet from the Cummings’ apartment on the morning of July 7, appeal documents state. Rojem had been at a local bar on the evening of July 6 and did not leave until 11:50 p.m., court records show.

Rojem called his job at about 1:14 a.m. and asked the dispatcher to log the time of his call as 12:35 a.m., court records show. Later Friday morning, Rojem “requested that the entry be changed to the correct time,” the documents state.

Although footprints were not visible in the soil around Layla’s body, police determined that tire tracks in the plowed field matched the tires of Rojem’s vehicle, appeal documents say.

When authorities searched Rojem’s bedroom on July 7, they found a used condom and wrapper in the trash that matched the one found on the floor next to Layla’s body, appeal documents state. The brand of condom was sold from a vending machine in the men’s room of the bar Rojem visited on the evening of July 6, documents say.

During Rojem’s questioning by police about his whereabouts, he said he left the bar after closing time, drove slowly to a convenience store about 25 miles away and arrived there at 1:10 a.m. on July 7, court records say. He said he then stopped by his girlfriend’s house in Dill City, Oklahoma, before returning to his house, court records say.

“Nobody will want to release him”

Jack Fisher told USA TODAY that it was “really, really difficult” to defend his client in court, even though there were “indications of his innocence.”

“If there is evidence to convict, the jury will convict him,” the lawyer said. “Nobody will want to release him.”

During the various appeal and parole hearings, including his final hearing on June 17, Fisher said the court had the option of “just leaving him in prison for the rest of his life.”

But “you can see the fire in the parole board’s eyes,” Fisher said of Rojem’s recent hearing.

The Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole denied Rojem’s pardon on June 17. Rojem has had luck with appeals before, having his first and second death sentences in 2001 and 2006 overturned because of jury problems in both cases, state court records show.

After the jury agreed on the death penalty for a third time in 2007, Rojem continued to fight until his appeal ran out in 2017.

What was Richard Rojem’s upbringing like?

Rojem comes from a family with “generational dysfunction,” and his parents and caregivers were alcoholics throughout his childhood, according to mitigating circumstances presented in court records to clarify Rojem’s past and spare him the death penalty.

Because Rojem was born prematurely with an orthopedic deformity and disability, he had a “painful dislocated hip” and spent the first three years of his life in a full-body cast, court records say.

When Rojem was three, his biological father was killed in a bar fight. He was raised by his 17-year-old mother in a “chaotic and crowded household,” the documents say. He lived with 13 people in a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom house.

According to the documents, Rojem witnessed domestic violence between his mother and stepfather and was sexually abused by an older stepbrother.

Court records show that Rojem had a genetic predisposition to developing mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other personality disorders.

Who is Richard Rojem now?

Fisher’s petition for clemency states that Rojem is a “Zen Buddhist and is highly respected by his Zen Buddhist friends” after spending decades behind bars.

“He should not be executed for this horrific crime he did not commit,” the lawyer wrote. “He will not pose a threat to anyone.”

Rojem continues to maintain his innocence, saying at the recent pardon hearing, “I did not murder Layla.” He did, however, acknowledge that he had been convicted of sexual assault in the past and served four years in a Michigan prison for the rape of two teenagers, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a June 10 press release.

“Layla Cummings’ family has waited 40 years for justice,” Drummond said. “Her killer is a true monster who deserves the same mercilessness he showed to the child he brutally murdered.”

Layla’s mother and Rojem’s ex-wife, Mindy Cummings, told the parole board: “Forty years is a very long time to see the justice his cruel crime deserves.”

She continued, “As long as this monster lives, we have to worry about our safety… Death row does not protect us from Rojem.”

Handcuffed, Rojem said during the hearing: “I was not a good person for the first half of my life, and I don’t deny that… But I went to prison. I learned my lesson and put all that behind me.”

Contributors: Amanda Lee Myers

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Richard Rojem to be executed in Oklahoma for murder of his ex-stepdaughter