This 2002 file photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Steven Ray Thacker.McALESTER, Okla. - A man convicted of committing three murders in three states during a 10-day rampage was executed Tuesday in Oklahoma for one of the murders, the 1999 death of a woman whose credit cards he used to buy Christmas presents for his family.
Steven Ray Thacker, 42, was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
Thacker, a laid-off plumber's apprentice, was convicted of abducting 25-year-old Laci Dawn Hill from her home at Bixby after going there under the guise of looking at a pool table she had advertised for sale. Her body was found six days later at a cabin in Mayes County, east of Tulsa. She had been raped and stabbed.
According to prosecutors, Thacker fled Oklahoma, stole a car in Springfield, Mo., and broke into a Missouri home looking for money. Forrest Reed Boyd, 24, arrived at his Aldrich home mid-theft and was stabbed to death by Thacker, who received a life sentence in that case.
Thacker then took Boyd's car and drove to Dyersburg, Tenn., where he killed Ray Patterson, 52, after Patterson arrived to help tow the car and discovered Thacker possessed stolen credit cards. A Tennessee court sentenced Thacker to death for that murder.
While searching for Thacker, the FBI said in late 1999 that he had been recently laid off from his job as a plumber's apprentice. Thacker's father-in-law Keith Roberson told the Tulsa World newspaper at the time that Thacker didn't have much money to spend on his family but suddenly seemed flush with cash.
"We just can't believe how he sat here at Christmas with us and carried on like nothing happened," Roberson told the newspaper.
Thacker waived his right to ask for clemency from the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board last month. Courts previously rejected Thacker's argument that he has a bipolar disorder and shouldn't be executed.