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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
OKLAHOMA CITY — Four years before Oklahoma became the 46th state, a woman named Dora Wright was executed in frontier territory in 1903.
Wright paid the ultimate price for killing a young girl, as she and another convicted murderer, Charles Barrett, were hanged side by side.
In imposing the sentences in June 1903, U.S. District Judge William Henry Harrison Clayton urged both defendants to make themselves right with God and confer with a gospel preacher.
“I do not want to add anything to your present lamentable condition, but simply to say to you that if I were you I would make all preparation for the great change that will shortly come to you,” the judge told Barrett.
In similar remarks to Wright, Clayton informed her, “It will not be long until you will have to meet your God, to face your Maker. You have from now until the 17th day of July in which to prepare yourself.”
I researched the details of Wright’s death a quarter-century ago while covering state prisons for The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City’s daily newspaper.
At the time, I was preparing to serve as a media witness at the lethal injection of Wanda Jean Allen — a two-time killer who on Jan. 11, 2001, became the first woman executed in Oklahoma since statehood in 1907.
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
Tennessee Department of Correction photo
