First female execution scheduled for Jan. 11

<br>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Execution dates were ordered Wednesday for five death row inmates, including Wanda Jean Allen, accused of shooting her lesbian lover outside a police station. <br><br>The Oklahoma

Thursday, October 5th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Execution dates were ordered Wednesday for five death row inmates, including Wanda Jean Allen, accused of shooting her lesbian lover outside a police station.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals decreed that Allen will be put to death by drug injection on Jan. 11, 2001. She would become the first woman to be executed in Oklahoma.

Allen, 41, was convicted of murdering roommate Gloria Jean Leathers, 29, in front of The Village Police Department on Dec. 1, 1988.

Leathers had driven to the police station of the Oklahoma City suburb after a domestic argument with Allen, who followed her and fired a single gunshot wound into Leathers' abdomen.

The condemned woman had previously received a four-year prison sentence for first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Detra Pettus in 1981.

She is among 134 people on death row in Oklahoma, including three women.

The executions were scheduled on the request of Attorney General Drew Edmondson after the Supreme Court on Monday rejected the final appeals of Allen and five other condemned killers.

Execution dates were set Wednesday for Floyd Allen Medlock, Canadian County; Robert William Clayton, Tulsa County; Dion Athanasius Smallwood, Oklahoma County, and Eddie Leroy Trice, Oklahoma City.

Medlock, 29, was convicted in the stabbing of 7-year-old Katherine Ann Busch, whose body was thrown into a dumpster near an apartment where she lived with her mother. The girl had been sexually assaulted in the 1990 crime. Medlock's execution was set for Jan. 16.

Clayton, 39, is scheduled for execution on Jan. 4. Clayton was an apartment complex groundskeeper convicted of killing Rhonda Kay Timmons, 19, in 1985. The victim was stabbed a dozen times and suffered a skull fracture.

Smallwood, 31, was convicted in the brutal death of Lois Frederick, 68-year-old mother of his ex-girlfriend. His execution is slated Jan. 18. Investigators said the woman was beaten with a croquet mallet, then her car was set on fire with gasoline. A medical examiner said the woman was burned so badly it was impossible to determine the extent of her injuries.

Trice, 48, is condemned for the 1987 murder of 84-year-old Ernestine Jones, who was beaten, raped and robbed at her Oklahoma City home. The woman suffered crushed bones in her cheek, fractured ribs, broken fingers and contusions to her heart and lungs. The woman's 63-year-old son also was severely beaten. Trice's execution is scheduled Jan. 9.

The attorney general's office said authorities have been unable to contact the woman's family members to inform them of the status of the case.

The appeals court declined to set an execution date for Phillip Dewitt Smith of Muskogee County because Smith has a pending third post-conviction application.

The attorney general's office contends that such an application does not prevent setting an execution date.

Sandi Howard, chief of the attorney general's criminal appeals division, said the governing statute is ``intended to prevent people from abusing the court by filing multiple post-conviction applications.''

Smith lost his appeal in district court and is challenging that decision at the Court of Criminal Appeals.

The 38-year-old condemned man was convicted in the beating death of Matthew Dean Taylor, 25, at Taylor's apartment house in Muskogee in 1983.