Attorney general to ask for execution date for convicted murderer

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson will ask the state Court of Criminal Appeals to set an execution date for a convicted murderer.

Gerardo Valdez's final appeal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court Monday.

He was convicted of killing Juan Barron of Grady County in 1989.

Records show that the night of the murder, Valdez and Barron met at a bar and went back to Valdez's home, where Valdez began preaching out of the Bible about homosexuality.

When Barron refused to listen to the message, Valdez shot him, cut his throat and burned his body in a backyard barbecue pit, court records said.

Valdez had claimed in his appeal that police violated his rights in their interrogation and that he was not mentally competent to stand trial.

Oklahoma has executed 10 inmates this year. Two other Oklahoma prisoners are scheduled to die.

Marilyn Kay Plantz is scheduled to be executed May 1 for engineering the 1988 murder of her husband, James Plantz, to collect on an insurance policy.

Terrance A. James is scheduled for a May 22 execution date for the 1983 jailhouse murder of 25-year-old Mark Allen Berry.