Oklahoma City — George John Hansen, the man whose violent 1999 spree across Tulsa ended with the carjacking and execution-style murder of a 77-year-old retired banker and the fatal shooting of a trucking company owner, was put to death by lethal injection Thursday morning at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Hansen, 61, was pronounced dead at 10:11 a. m. after state officials confirmed the process was carried out smoothly with no reported complications.
His final words were a plea for absolution: “Just forgive me and peace to everyone.”
The execution brings to a close a harrowing legal and criminal saga that stretched more than 25 years, weaving through federal prison time, a dramatic clemency battle, a last-minute judicial stay that held for just two days, and an eventual green light from a higher appellate court.
Hansen’s crimes date back to the evening of August 31, 1999, when he and accomplice Victor Miller were in the midst of a violent robbery spree. Having already hit two liquor stores, the pair set their sights on a clean get-away vehicle outside the Tulsa Promenade Mall.
Their target was Mary B. S. , a 77-year-old retired banker and longtime hospital volunteer who was simply loading her car after an evening out.
She had no idea two armed men were watching her, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Miller jumped behind the wheel of her vehicle while Hansen shoved Mary into the back seat at gunpoint. What followed was a nightmare that would leave two families shattered and two men facing the ultimate punishment for their crimes.
They drove north, avoiding main roads and plunging into the darkness. Eventually, they pulled into a dirt pit near AASO, a spot they believed was empty. It wasn’t.
Gerald Thurman, a 44-year-old trucking company owner, was there making a delivery when he saw the car circling the area. His instincts told him something was deeply wrong, and he called his nephew to give a quick heads-up before hanging up.
Minutes later, four shots rang out. Miller had pulled a revolver and fired on Thurman, who dropped where he stood. But the trucker didn’t die immediately, and his attackers didn’t wait to see whether he would survive.
They drove off with Mary still trapped in the back seat, her terror mounting with every passing mile. Along a rural stretch of road, they dragged her out of the vehicle.
Hansen threw the 77-year-old woman to the ground and fired four to six rounds from a 9mm pistol into her body. Then they left her there, discarded beneath a pile of branches like she was nothing.
It wasn’t until September 7th, exactly one week after the attack, that searchers finally discovered Mary’s body. Gerald Thurman was found much earlier, after locals heard the gunshots and immediately called authorities.
Thurman was still breathing when help arrived, and for a brief moment, there was hope. But he never regained consciousness and died in the hospital on September 14th, two weeks after being gunned down.
In the aftermath, the killers had vanished, and no one knew who they were. After killing Mary, Hansen and Miller took her car and drove to the Oasis Motel, where Hansen walked in to ask about a room, then left.
He returned minutes later, claiming the car wouldn’t start. The clerk lent him a screwdriver and followed him outside, where he watched both men tinkering with the Ford before they gave up, returned the tool, and rented the room.
Hansen signed the registration card and even showed his driver’s license. But that was the last time the clerk ever saw either man, and the car stayed in the parking lot untouched, a silent piece of evidence marking where the trail would begin to unravel.
Over the next several days, the fugitives kept moving, robbing a liquor store on September 3rd. Their crime spree escalated on September 8th when they hit a credit union, drawing in more law enforcement agencies with every new offense.
But the walls were closing in rapidly. On September 9th, Miller’s own wife made an anonymous call revealing they were hiding out at an Econo Lodge. That same day, an officer spotted Mary’s car still parked at the Oasis Motel.
With multiple jurisdictions now working together, officers tracked the suspects to their motel room. Miller surrendered quietly, but Hansen barricaded himself inside and it took tear gas to force him out.
When investigators searched the room, they found the murder weapons and extra ammunition hidden in the toilet tank. Forensic evidence quickly sealed the case against both men.
Hansen’s fingerprint was found on the driver’s side seat belt buckle in Mary’s car, while Miller’s print was recovered from the front passenger side. The physical evidence told a clear story of who was driving and who was holding the victim.
Then came the witness whose testimony would drive the final nail in the coffin. Rashad Barnes, a friend of Hansen’s, testified that Hansen had admitted to everything, bragging about carjacking an old lady, the kidnapping, and the killings.
Barnes told the court that Miller shot Gerald Thurman, but it was Hansen who pulled the trigger on Mary B.S. The testimony was damning, and both men were charged with two counts of first-degree murder plus several federal robbery charges.
By the time Hansen finally faced a jury in May 2001, nearly two years after the attacks, his criminal record already stretched back almost two decades, marked by robbery, assault, and a life steeped in violence.
In Tulsa County, courtrooms remained hushed as prosecutors laid out the carjacking in graphic detail, the execution-style killing of an elderly woman, and the cold-blooded shooting of an innocent trucker who was simply doing his job.
Hansen sat through it all without showing any reaction. On May 18, 2001, after just five hours of deliberation, the jury returned their verdict: guilty on both counts of first-degree murder.
Five days later, on May 23rd, the jury made their sentencing recommendation. For the murder of Mary B. S.
, they wanted death. For the killing of Gerald Thurman, they recommended life without parole.
The message was unmistakable: there would be no second chances for this defendant. But Hansen didn’t go straight to death row. Instead, he was sent to federal court for the bank robbery charges and sentenced to life in prison.
He was transferred to USP Pollock, a high-security federal prison in Louisiana, and for years he waited there, serving his federal time while Oklahoma retained the right to carry out his execution.
Victor Miller’s trial came next, and it wasn’t his first time in the hot seat. He had previously served time for murder, but that sentence had been reduced, and by 1997, he was a free man. Just two years later, he was killing again.
In 2002, Miller stood trial for the same crimes as his codefendant and was found guilty of both murders. The evidence was nearly identical, and so was the result: a death sentence for one murder and life without parole for the other.
But Miller wasn’t done fighting. He filed appeals, and in 2015, Tulsa County prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. Instead, Miller was resentenced to a second term of life without parole.
Hansen, however, wasn’t so lucky. He also fought his death sentence, but the courts didn’t waver. His execution was first scheduled for December 15, 2022, but the Biden administration refused to transfer him back to Oklahoma.
The state sued, but a federal judge sided with the prison system and paused the execution indefinitely. For a time, it seemed Hansen might never face the death chamber.
That changed dramatically in 2025. After a shift in federal leadership, new Attorney General Pam Bondi approved the transfer. On March 3rd, Hansen was moved to death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, and his execution date was set for June 12, 2025.
At his clemency hearing on May 7th, Hansen tried to explain himself. Speaking through a video link with a low but steady voice, he expressed remorse for his involvement in the crimes and apologized directly to the victims’ families.
“I’m not an evil person,” he said. “I was caught in a situation I couldn’t control. I can’t change the past, but I would if I could.”
It wasn’t enough. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 to deny clemency, and the execution date remained firmly in place. Gerald Thurman’s son, Jake, said the moment was long overdue, a reckoning nearly 26 years in the making.
Jake called his father his hero and said he still saw him in his own children’s faces. He also spoke about the deep pain of the 2022 delay, revealing that his mother died not long after the postponement, having never lived to see the justice she had waited for.
With just days to go before the scheduled execution, Hansen caught what looked like a break. An Oklahoma County judge stepped in and temporarily halted the lethal injection, citing concerns about the clemency process.
Hansen’s lawyers argued he never got a fair shot before the pardon and parole board. The vote had been close, 3-2 in favor of death, but one of those votes came from a board member who used to work for the same district attorney’s office that prosecuted Hansen.
That, the defense argued, was a conflict of interest that tainted the entire proceeding. For a brief, tense moment, the stay held, giving Hansen and his legal team a flicker of hope.
But the reprieve lasted just two days. A higher appeals court stepped in, overturned the decision, and gave the green light for the execution to move forward.
No one knows whether Hansen had been planning his final moments all along, or whether the last-minute stay only pushed him further over the edge. But when it came to his last meal, he requested nothing special.
No favorites, no final indulgences. Just the standard tray handed out that Wednesday evening: chicken pot pie, two rolls, two fruit cups, and carrots. Ordinary food for an extraordinary night.
Then came his final morning. On June 12, 2025, Hansen was strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. His last words were brief and measured: “Just forgive me and peace to everyone.”
The lethal injection was administered without any reported complications, and Hansen was pronounced dead at 10:11 a.m. He was 61 years old, more than a quarter-century removed from the night that changed everything.
The execution marks the definitive end of a case that saw multiple legal battles, a dramatic federal intervention, and a final, fleeting moment of hope when a judge briefly blocked the death sentence before being overruled.
For the family of Mary B. S. , the closure comes with the knowledge that the man who executed their beloved mother and grandmother has now faced the same fate.
For the family of Gerald Thurman, it brings a long-delayed sense of justice finally served.
Oklahoma’s execution of Hansen was the latest in a series of lethal injections carried out by the state, which continues to be one of the most active death penalty jurisdictions in the United States.
