John Hanson executed in Oklahoma after Trump administration cleared the way

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Oklahoma has executed a man two and a half years after the Biden administration thwarted his original date with death.

John Hanson, 61, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday morning, June 12. He was convicted of killing 77-year-old Mary Agnes Bowles after he and another man carjacked and kidnapped her from a mall on Aug. 3, 1999. The men also killed a witness, Jerald Thurman.

Hanson was pronounced dead at 10:11 a.m., a corrections spokesman told Paste BN.

Hanson's death was made possible by the Trump administration, which approved of his transfer from federal custody in Louisiana to Oklahoma in February for the sole purpose of his execution. The Biden administration had blocked the transfer in 2022, in line with the former president's opposition to the death penalty.

Hanson's execution also came the same week that he won a stay from a judge, only for it to be overturned by a higher court. Hanson is now the 22nd inmate to be executed in the U.S. this year and is one of four men to be executed this week alone.

Hanson's attorney, Callie Heller, criticized the execution as "an act of pointless cruelty," saying that Hanson has autism that made him susceptible to being manipulated by his "dominating co-defendant."

Oklahoma's Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement that "justice was finally served."

"This case demonstrates that no matter how long it takes, Oklahoma will hold murderers accountable for their crimes," he said.

Here's what you need to know about the execution, including Hanson's last words and what the victims' family members said after witnessing it.

Last words, last meal, victims families' thoughts

Hanson did not request anything special for his last meal on Wednesday, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman said. He did get what was served to other inmates − chicken pot pie, two rolls, two fruit cups and carrots.

As Hanson lie strapped to the execution gurney ahead of his lethal injection on Thursday, he delivered his last words, saying what sounded like "Just forgive me" or "Just forgiveness," ending his final thoughts with: "Peace to everyone."

A spiritual adviser, pastor Michael Scott, stood by his feet and read from a Bible as the execution drugs began to flow into this arms. Hanson could be heard snoring when the Department of Corrections chief of operations announced he was unconscious.

In addition to the media witnesses, who included Nolan Clay of The Oklahoman − part of the Paste BN Network − several loved ones of both victims watched Hanson's dying breaths.

"I feel like now we can finally be at peace with this," said Jerald Thurman's son, Jacob Thurman of Tulsa. "I feel like we have some closure and our families can pick up the pieces now and move forward."

He specifically thanked U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for ordering Hanson's transfer from federal custody "so that Oklahoma can carry out this just sentence."

Bowles' niece, Sara Parker Mooney, called for reforms after witnessing the execution, which came well over two decades after her beloved aunt's murder.

"Capital punishment is not an effective form of justice when it takes 26 years," said Mooney, who lives in Texas. "Respectfully, if the state is going to continue to execute individuals, a better process is needed. This existing process is broken."

Bowles' grand-niece, Alana Price of New York City, told Paste BN that she was upset when she learned that "the Trump administration had suddenly greenlighted" Hanson's execution, pointing to developmental disabilities cited by his attorneys."It gives me a sick feeling of guilt and complicity to know that this execution has occurred invoking the name of Aunt Mary and, as one who loved her, implicitly me," she said. "Executions like these don’t heal violence – they reproduce the violence and make the pain worse, forcing everyone in our society to be complicit in murder."

What was John Hanson convicted of?

On Aug. 31, 1999, Mary Bowles was in the Promenade Mall in Tulsa, getting in one of the frequent walks she liked to do for exercise.

When she got back to her car, John Hanson and Victor Miller pulled their guns, then carjacked and kidnapped Bowles, wanting to use the retired banker's car for a robbery spree. The men took Bowles to an isolated area near a dirt pit, according to court records.

The owner of the pit, Jerald Thurman, was there and saw the car circling the pit before it drove up to him. Miller got out and shot Thurman four times, including once in the head, as Bowles sat helplessly in the back of the car, court records say.

Miller drove a short distance away, during which Bowles asked the men: "Do you have any kids or anyone who loves you?" according to court records, prompting Hanson to punch her. Shortly after, Miller stopped the car, and Hanson forced Bowles out and shot her her at least six times, court records say.

Thurman's nephew, who had been on the phone with him just before the attack, found his wounded uncle still alive shortly after the shooting. Thurman died two weeks later.

Bowles's badly "significantly decomposed" body was found more than a week later on Sept. 7, 1999, court records say.

Hanson and Miller continued on what prosecutors called an "armed-felony binge," robbing a video store and a bank at gunpoint over a five-day period before Miller's wife turned the men in following an argument. They were captured two days after Bowles' body was found.

Miller was sentenced to life in prison, and Hanson got the death penalty. Miller later bragged about having been the one to shoot Bowles, according to court records. All of that adds up to "a disturbing miscarriage of justice," Hanson's attorneys say.

Hanson explained his actions at a recent clemency hearing, describing Miller as driving the violence.

"I am not an evil person ... I was caught in a situation I couldn't control," he said. "Things were happening so fast, and at the spur of the moment, due to my lack of decisiveness and fear, I responded incorrectly, and two people lost their lives."

He added: "I can't change the past. I would if I could."

Who was Mary Bowles? 'A gentle person'

Hundreds turned out for Mary Bowles' funeral, showing just how beloved the avid volunteer was in the community, according to an archived story in the Tulsa World.

Among Bowles' many volunteer organizations was a local hospital where she had logged over 11,000 hours in the neonatal unit for critical newborn babies, the Oklahoman reported in 1999.

"She was such a gentle person," Beverly Farrell, a hospital director, told The Oklahoman. "I can't imagine her offering resistance to anyone. She would have given up her car. I don't understand how anyone could be violent to her."

Though Bowles never married and had no children herself, she treated over a dozen nephews and nieces as if they were her own, friends and family told media outlets at the time.

"She had to be the greatest aunt in the world," Farrell said.

Bowles also had a passion for music and traveling. She majored in music education at Oklahoma A&M and played at the Tulsa Philharmonic for three seasons, according to the Oklahoman. Bowles once took a hot-air balloon ride over Lake Tahoe and enjoyed cross-country skiing in the winter, niece Linda Behrends told the Tulsa World.

Farrell said Bowles' murder was devastating for the hospital and the community: "She made such a meaningful impact here in all that she did."

What did President Donald Trump have to do with this execution?

Hanson was imprisoned in Louisiana, serving a life sentence for bank robbery and other federal crimes, when Oklahoma scheduled his execution for Bowles' murder.

Hanson's execution had been set for Dec. 15, 2022, but the Biden administration blocked his transfer to Oklahoma from federal custody in Louisiana. The move was in line with Biden's opposition to the death penalty and came a couple years before Biden commuted the death sentences of all but three federal death row inmates just before he left office in December.

During Trump's first month in office this year, he signed an executive order restoring federal executions, calling the death penalty "an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes."

Three days later, Oklahoma Attorney General Drummond asked the U.S. Department of Justice to transfer Hanson to his state. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer Hanson from Louisiana, and he arrived in Oklahoma in March.

"Today, justice was finally served for Mary Bowles and Jerald Thurman," Drummond said in a statement Thursday. "After more than 25 years of waiting, the killer who brutally took these two precious lives has paid the ultimate price for his heinous crime."

John Hanson won a stay from a judge this week

Hanson's execution was in doubt after an Oklahoma judge granted him a stay on Monday, June 9. The stay stemmed from Hanson's arguments that one of three members of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board who voted to deny him clemency was biased. (The board voted 3-2.)

Hanson said that board member Sean Malloy was a prosecutor in Tulsa County when Hanson was resentenced in 2006 and therefore should not have been allowed to weigh in on his clemency petition. Malloy said he never worked on Hanson's case.

Oklahoma County District Judge Richard Ogden ordered a stay of execution pending Hanson's lawsuit against the board over Malloy's participation. Drummond immediately appealed the ruling and on Wednesday, June 11, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned it, allowing the execution to proceed.

Hanson's attorney, Emma Rolls, slammed the decision. “No person facing execution should have to plead for mercy in front of a decisionmaker with direct ties to their prosecution," she said.

Bowles' niece, Sara Parker Mooney, criticized the last-minute legal wrangling that stops or delays executions.

"There must be limitations on taxpayer-funded frivolous litigation as exemplified in the past two weeks," she said. "It's ridiculous, it's expensive and it only revictimizes the survivors."

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter for Paste BN. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.