Clemency Denied for Rogers

(McAlester-AP) -- The state Pardon and Parole Board unanimously denied clemency today for a condemned man accused in an Oklahoma State student's murder. <br><br>Thirty-one-year-old Kelly Lamont Rogers

Thursday, March 2nd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(McAlester-AP) -- The state Pardon and Parole Board unanimously denied clemency today for a condemned man accused in an Oklahoma State student's murder.

Thirty-one-year-old Kelly Lamont Rogers faces lethal injection March 23rd for the December 19th, 1990, death of 21-year-old Karen Marie Lauffenburger, who worked as a pizza delivery driver.

Members of Rogers' family and ministers pleaded with the board to grant clemency, citing Rogers' religious work while on death row. But Assistant Attorney General Robert Whittaker says Rogers told his girlfriend he was going to rob a pizza delivery person and took 40 dollars from Lauffenburger when she delivered a pizza to his girlfriend's apartment.

Whittaker says Rogers went to Lauffenburger's apartment, got her A-T-M card and apparently raped her and stabbed her, then raped her again.