Death sentence in 1976: Mississippi executes longest-serving death row inmate, Richard Jordan after 49 years

Richard Gerald Jordan, the longest-serving prisoner on Mississippi’s death row, nearly 49 years after he kidnapped and killed Edwina Marter in a failed ransom plot was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.

Jordan,a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran, received the injection at 6 pm in the Mississippi State Penitentiary, Parchman. Prison officials pronounced him dead at 6.16 pm.

Before the drugs were administered, Jordan apologised to the victim’s family, thanked prison staff for “a humane way of doing this,” and addressed his wife, lawyer and spiritual adviser, saying, “I will see you on the other side, all of you.” His wife Marsha Jordan and lawyer Krissy Nobile wiped away tears as they witnessed the procedure.

Family members of Edwina Marter did not attend. Instead, spokesman Keith Degruy read a statement on their behalf, saying the execution could not restore what was lost: “Nothing can ever change what Jordan took from us 49 years ago.”

Court records show that in January 1976 Jordan telephoned Gulf National Bank in Gulfport, obtained loan officer Charles Marter’s home address from a directory, and kidnapped Marter’s wife Edwina. He shot her in a forest before calling her husband to demand US$25,000, falsely claiming she was alive.

Jordan’s execution followed decades of legal challenges spanning four trials and numerous appeals. He was one of several inmates who had sued Mississippi over its three-drug execution protocol, calling it inhumane. On Monday, the US Supreme Court rejected his final appeal without comment.

Defence lawyers argued Jordan suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder from three consecutive Vietnam tours, but Governor Tate Reeves denied a clemency request that cited his wartime trauma.

The execution was Mississippi’s third in the past decade and the first since December 2022. It came a day after another prisoner was put to death in Florida, contributing to what observers say could be the highest annual US execution count since 2015.