Tremane Wood, the 46-year-old death row inmate who faced execution on Thursday in Oklahoma, has had his life spared just minutes before he was set to receive a lethal injection.
Kevin Stitt, the state’s Republican governor, accepted the Oklahoma pardon and parole board’s recommendation that Wood’s sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole. It is just the second time during Stitt’s nearly seven years as governor that he has granted clemency.
Earlier in the day, the US supreme court issued a ruling denying a request from Wood’s attorneys to stop the execution.
Wood was convicted of felony murder in the stabbing death of Ronnie Wipf, a 19-year-old migrant farm worker from Montana, during a botched robbery in 2002. Wood’s attorneys have not denied that he participated in the robbery but maintain that his brother, Zjaiton (“Jake”) Wood, was the one who stabbed Wipf.
Zjaiton Wood was sentenced to life without parole and died by suicide in prison in 2019 after admitting in court that he killed Wipf, said Tremane Wood’s attorney, Amanda Bass Castro Alves.
In issuing the pardon, Stitt said in a statement: “This action reflects the same punishment his brother received for their murder of an innocent young man and ensures a severe punishment that keeps a violent offender off the streets forever.”
Wood has been imprisoned at the Oklahoma state penitentiary in McAlester for more than 20 years. The state’s pardon and parole board issued an uncommon clemency recommendation last week.
“I’m not a monster. I’m not a killer,” Wood told the hearing via a video link from prison. “I never was, and I never have been.”
Wood’s attorneys had argued, among other things, that trial prosecutors did not properly reveal details of a plea agreement with a key witness.
Prosecutors have painted Wood as a dangerous criminal who has continued to participate in gang activity and commit crimes while incarcerated, including buying and selling drugs, using contraband cellphones and ordering an attack on another person in the prison.
“Even within the confines of maximum security prison, Tremane Wood has continued to manipulate, exploit and harm others,” the state’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, said earlier.
Wood’s son, Brendan Wood, spoke to the Guardian just outside the prison later on Thursday morning, having moments before been on the premises waiting to witness his father’s execution. He said he felt “very joyous”.
“I feel lighter. I feel like a thousand pounds has been lifted off my shoulders,” Brendon Wood added.
He called the fact that the clemency was not granted until the minute that his father was about to be put to death “mental torture”.
Brendon Wood said: “I think there needs to be possibly some precaution in place maybe even a bill that prevents last-second decisions like this … I believe that a person wholeheartedly thinking that they are about to take their last breath, and its coming down to seconds, minutes before the decision is made … I find that to be mental torture, I don’t find that to be humane.”
He added: “I think it is cruel and inhumane, mental torture because at that point they are trying to find their peace and find a place where they aren’t going to go out in anguish.”
Jasmine Brown-Jutras, a community organizer and advocate for the Wood family, said she was grateful and relieved.
“We saved him together, God saved him. Thank you to Governor Stitt for making the decision – the right decision – to give Tremane a chance at redemption and seeing his humanity,” she said.
She also talked of the stress of the last-minute decision.
“My stomach still hurts. It was really scary and it’s extremely traumatizing. All of the tears that I’ve had over the last weeks are not in despair that we won’t have Tremane any more, it’s in sadness for what trauma the family and what trauma Tremane and what trauma the legal team has been though. I can’t thank God enough,” she said.
During testimony last week, Tremane Wood accepted responsibility for his prison misconduct and his participation in the robbery, but reiterated that he was not the one who killed Wipf.
“I regret my role in everything that happened that night,” he said.
In Florida, Bryan Frederick Jennings was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday. In South Carolina, Stephen Bryant was scheduled to die by firing squad on Friday.
As well as the 41 people who have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the US, at least another 17, including Jennings and Bryant, are scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
