Clemency Denied For Convicted Killer

Wednesday, August 1st 2007, 12:48 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board Wednesday unanimously denies clemency for a man convicted in the 1987 killing of a Norman woman. The board voted 5-0 against granting clemency for Frank Duane Welch, who is scheduled to die Aug. 21 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

The former cable television repairman was sentenced to death in 1998 by a Cleveland County jury for the 1987 killing of 28-year-old Jo Talley Cooper.

Cooper, who was three months pregnant at the time of her death, was tied up, molested and strangled while her infant son slept in the next room.

The case remained unsolved for a decade.

Welch was serving time in prison in 1997 for attempted kidnapping and assault on a woman in a Wal-Mart parking lot when his DNA profile was matched with a fluid sample taken from the Cooper crime scene.