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 If the execution goes ahead, Michael Lee Wilson, 38, would be the
first person put to death this year in Oklahoma and the second
person executed in 2014 in the United States, according to the Death
Penalty Information Center, which tracks the use of capital
punishment.
Wilson was one of four men found guilty of murdering 30-year-old
Richard Yost, who was found bound and beaten to death inside the
convenience store's cooler.
Two of those convicted for the murder in Tulsa have already been
executed and the fourth was sentenced to life without parole.
According to court documents, Wilson, Darwin Demond Brown, Billy Don
Alverson and Richard Harjo entered the QuikTrip convenience store in
the morning of February 26, 1995. Wilson worked with the victim.
The men surrounded Yost and dragged him into a cooler. They
handcuffed him and bound his ankles.
Security tapes show the men then left the store and returned with an
aluminum baseball bat. The tapes also recorded the sounds of Yost
being beaten. An autopsy report said pieces of the handcuffs were
embedded into the victim's head.
While Yost was being beaten, Wilson put on his QuikTrip uniform and
removed the safe in the store. He also waited on customers.
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Brown and Alverson were executed in 2009 and 2011, respectively.
Harjo, 16 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
(Reporting by Heide Brandes; editing by Jon Herskovitz and Lisa
Shumaker)
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