Man who raped two girls in Michigan and killed one in Oklahoma to be executed

OKLAHOMA, USA — The Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole on Monday unanimously denied clemency for a death row inmate convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering a 7-year-old girl in 1984, clearing the way for his execution later this month.

Richard Rojem, 66, denied responsibility for the murder of his former stepdaughter Layla Cummings. The child’s mutilated and partially clothed body was discovered in a field in rural Washita County near the town of Burns Flat. She had been stabbed to death.

Rojem has exhausted all appeals and is scheduled to receive the lethal injection on June 27. His lawyers argued that he was innocent and that DNA evidence taken from the girl’s fingernails did not link him to the crime.

“If my client’s DNA is not there, he should not be convicted,” said attorney Jack Fisher.

Fisher urged the board to recommend that the governor grant clemency so that Rojem would not be executed and would not have to spend the rest of his life in prison. Governor Kevin Stitt cannot commute Rojem’s death sentence without a clemency request from the board.

Prosecutors say there is plenty of other evidence besides DNA that was used to convict Rojem, including a fingerprint discovered outside the girl’s apartment on a mug from a bar Rojem left shortly before the girl was abducted. A condom wrapper found near the girl’s body can also be linked to a used condom found in Rojem’s bedroom, prosecutors said.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Crabb said Rojem was previously convicted of raping two teenagers in Michigan and was angry at Layla Cummings for reporting that he sexually assaulted her, leading to his divorce from the girl’s mother and his return to prison for violating his probation.

Rojem, who appeared via video link from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, denied responsibility for the rape and killing of Layla.

“I was not a good person in the first half of my life, I don’t deny that,” said Rojem, handcuffed and wearing a red prison uniform. “But I went to prison. I learned my lesson and put it all behind me.”

A Washita County jury convicted Rojem in 1985 after deliberating for just 45 minutes. His previous death sentences were overturned twice by appeals courts due to procedural errors. A Custer County jury finally sentenced him to death for a third time in 2007.

Layla Cummings’ mother did not appear before the pardons committee, but wrote a letter last month urging the panel to deny the pardon.

“Everything she could have been was taken from her in one terrible night,” wrote Mindy Lynn Cummings. “She never became more than the wonderful 7-year-old she was. And so she remains in our hearts – forever 7.”

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