Man faces execution for murder of ex-girlfriend's mother

Dion Athanasius Smallwood, 31, was scheduled to receive a lethal dose of drugs in the prison's death chamber shortly after 9 p.m.

He would become the fourth person executed in Oklahoma this month, with four more executions scheduled in the next two weeks.

Death penalty opponents have targeted the state with demands for a moratorium on executions, but have so far been unsuccessful.

Smallwood was convicted of murdering Lois Frederick, 68, on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 1992, after breaking into her home.

Acquaintances said Smallwood resented Frederick for trying to keep him away from her adopted daughter, Terri Jo Frederick.

Smallwood's lawyer, Leslie Delk, has filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to try to stop the execution.

Terri Frederick was flying in from out of state to watch the execution -- the only witness scheduled to do so on her mother's behalf, officials said.

At Smallwood's murder trial, Terri testified he had attacked her several times throughout their relationship, once even putting a gun in her mouth and busting out one of her teeth. She said he warned her several times that if she ever broke up with him, he would kill her family and friends.

In an 11-page handwritten letter to the Oklahoma clemency board, Terri urged the state not to forgive the man she once loved.

"I remember my mom begging me to leave him as she was so scared that one day he was going to end up killing me," she wrote.

Frederick wrote that she has suffered depression and feelings of guilt since her mother's death and has attempted suicide several times.

"I am no longer able to trust people. I'm still afraid to be by myself," Frederick wrote.

According to testimony at Smallwood's trial, he entered Lois Frederick's home and began fighting with her about Terri, who had recently moved out of the apartment she and Smallwood had shared and filed a protective order against him.

After smashing Frederick's phone and striking her, Smallwood beat her over the head with a croquet mallet. He then threw her limp body in the trunk of a car that Frederick had forbidden her daughter to use, fearing she would go see Smallwood.

After driving around for several hours, Smallwood bought some gas, parked the car in a rural area in northwest Oklahoma City, then doused and ignited it.

An autopsy of Frederick's remains -- burned beyond recognition -- indicated she died of smoke inhalation, not the blow from the croquet mallet.

When Terri returned home late that night, the only sign of her mother were bloodstains and a pool of her vomit.

She said watching Smallwood die will relieve some of the anger -- if not the pain -- she has lived with since Feb. 5, 1992.

"I have to live the rest of my life knowing that someone I brought into my heart and life and did everything for is responsible for the murder of my mom," she wrote.