CLEMENCY denied for Bixby killer of two

MCALESTER, Okla. (AP) _ The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board unanimously rejected a plea for clemency Monday from a man scheduled to die in two weeks. <br><br>Jack Dale Walker, who was convicted of the

Tuesday, August 14th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MCALESTER, Okla. (AP) _ The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board unanimously rejected a plea for clemency Monday from a man scheduled to die in two weeks.

Jack Dale Walker, who was convicted of the Dec. 30, 1988, stabbing deaths of Shelly Ellison and Donald Epperson, is scheduled to be executed Aug. 28.

Ellison, 17, was the mother of Walker's 3-month-old son. Epperson, 30, was Ellison's uncle.

``I want to take this time to apologize to the victims' family for all the pain I've caused them and for this whole ordeal that has been tragic for a lot of people,'' Walker said during the clemency hearing.

Walker attacked Ellison after an argument about their son at her grandmother's mobile home near Bixby. Epperson was killed while trying to help his niece.

Ellison was stabbed 32 times. Epperson received 11 knife wounds.

During Monday's hearing, Assistant Attorney General Robert Whittaker played a tape of the 911 call Ellison made before her death. She died cradling the telephone.

``I need help,'' she said to the dispatcher. ``He's stabbing me. I'm dead. Please.''

Children are yelling and a baby is crying in the background.

Walker said he went to the home to talk Ellison into living with him, then took the knife with the intention of threatening suicide.

``I did not go over there to harm anyone but possibly myself,'' he said. ``I just wanted Joshua and Shelly to come home.''

But Walker told police after his arrest that he went to the home to take the baby.

``I had the full intention of either taking the baby or murdering her or whoever got in the way,'' Walker said on the 13-year-old tape. ``I thought about it for months.''

The parole board heard evidence about past domestic abuse by Walker, including the time he dragged Ellison down the escalator at her workplace and rammed his truck into her car.

Walker's son, who was adopted by his maternal grandparents, wrote a letter to the board in support of his father's execution.

``Sometimes I think about what life would be like if my mom were alive, but then I come to my senses and realize that was destroyed by one man, Jack Walker,'' Joshua Ellison wrote. ``I think Jack Walker should pay for what he did to my mother. I think he should die for taking my mom away from me.''