Man convicted of killing couple formally sentenced to death

MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) A federal judge formally sentences a man who was convicted of killing a Texas couple in the Ouachita National Forest. <br/><br/>Authorities say 38-year-old Edward Leon Fields Junior

Wednesday, November 9th 2005, 5:12 am

By: News On 6

MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) A federal judge formally sentences a man who was convicted of killing a Texas couple in the Ouachita National Forest.

Authorities say 38-year-old Edward Leon Fields Junior confessed to killing Charles Chick and his wife, Shirley Chick, while the Hurst, Texas, couple was camping in southeast Oklahoma.

A jury sentenced Fields to die in July.

US District Judge Ronald A. White also imposed 405-year sentences on each of two counts of using a firearm and one count of robbery by firearm, as well as 84 years for burglarizing an automobile, all to be served consecutively.

Fields wore a camouflage outfit constructed of hundreds of loose-fiber brown strings to sneak up on the couple undetected and watch them at their LeFlore County campsite.

Looking somewhat like a mossy, overgrown swamp monster, Fields approached with a .22-caliber rifle -- also covered in shaggy burlap strips -- to move within a few feet of the Chicks and shoot them as they sat at a picnic table.

The former prison guard had no previous record.