By Taylor Smith and Alyssa Eng
MCALESTER, OK – Richard Fairchild, one of many others awaiting death in Oklahoma, was executed Thursday for the torture slaying of his girlfriend’s three-year-old son in 1993.
News outlets reported Fairchild, who turned 63 Thursday, received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was declared dead at 10:24 a.m.
Fairchild’s emergency appeal application failed—it claimed Fairchild suffered severe mental illness and brain damage.
Fairchild’s recorded history with mental illness was reflected in his pre-trial competency evaluation, but the Oklahoma Parole Board declined to recommend clemency to Fairchild when it reviewed the issue in October.
Fairchild’s attorneys said Fairchild’s brain damage had worsened to such an extreme that he was no longer able to comprehend his sentence or the accusations against him.
About a week ago, Fairchild’s attorneys were asked to explain his condition to the Department of Corrections, and they said their own interactions with Fairchild have made it clear that his condition is past the point of any question of competency, going so far as to say he “is completely out of touch with reality.”
Their last-ditch failed motion desperately urged the court to reevaluate Fairchild’s mental conditions before they make the final decision to execute a person experiencing incompetency, which would be a violation of both state and federal law.
Emma Rolls—Fairchild’s long-standing attorney—advocated strongly on his behalf, stating, “Richard Fairchild’s connection to reality has been tenuous throughout the over 20 years our office has represented him.”
She explained that in the past few days she has personally witnessed his condition worsen.
“He believes his brother is torturing him with a voice recording device from outside the prison,” she detailed, “and that his brother wants him to be executed in order to obtain millions of dollars that Mr. Fairchild believes he has in a bank.”
Fairchild’s execution was the seventh since Oklahoma resumed carrying out the death penalty in October 2021 and one of four scheduled nationwide over a two-day stretch. It was the 16th execution in the U.S. this year, including one in Texas and one in Arizona on Wednesday, up from last year’s three-decade low of 11.
Attorneys for Fairchild argued that he was abused as a child, was mentally ill and was remorseful for his actions.
“As Richard Fairchild’s brain has deteriorated, he has descended into psychosis, a fact well-documented in his prison records. Yet despite having lost touch with reality, Richard remains remorseful for his crime and continues to have an unblemished prison record. There is no principled reason for Oklahoma to execute him.”
