Michael Dwayne Smith was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 10:20 a.m. on April 4, 2024, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, ending a 21-year journey from gang-affiliated teenager to the state’s first executed inmate of the year.
The 41-year-old former member of the Oak Grove Posse, a violent Crips subset, declined a last meal and offered only a terse final statement when asked by the execution team leader. “Nah, I’m good,” Smith said, before turning to his spiritual adviser, Reverend Jeff Hood, to quietly express love for his family
Smith’s execution by lethal injection began at 10:08 a. m. with the administration of midazolam.
Witnesses reported brief shaking and audible snoring-like breaths before he was declared unconscious. A doctor confirmed death at 10:20 a. m
The execution concluded a case that spanned three murders committed over four months in 2001 and 2002, a spree that authorities say stemmed from gang retaliation and a delusional search for snitches. Smith was convicted of killing 41-year-old Janet Denise Miller Moore and 22-year-old Sarath Babu Puluru on the same day, February 22, 2002
Moore was shot once in the chest inside her apartment after Smith kicked down her door. He had been looking for her son, whom he suspected of informing police. Puluru, a college student from India working a shift at a convenience store, was shot nine times and then set on fire with lighter fluid.
Smith also confessed to the November 2001 murder of 26-year-old Otis Payne Jr. outside a nightclub
Smith’s path to death row began in a fractured home in Oklahoma City, where he turned to PCP by age 10 and joined the Oak Grove Posse at 18. His attorneys argued he was intellectually disabled and that his videotaped confession was coerced while he was under the influence of drugs, but courts ruled the confession voluntary and his IQ scores above the legal threshold for exemption.
In his final plea for clemency on March 6, 2024, Smith maintained his innocence, telling the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, “I didn’t commit these crimes. I was high on drugs. I don’t even remember getting arrested.”
The board voted 4-1 to deny clemency, citing the brutality of his crimes and multiple confessions.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond read statements from the victims’ families after the execution. Janet Moore’s family expressed gratitude, calling her “a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, and an angel.” Puluru’s family described him as “the life of our family” and thanked the state for delivering justice.
Drummond emphasized the tragic randomness of the killings. “Janet and Sarath were murdered simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “I am grateful that justice has been served.”
Not everyone agreed. Reverend Don Heath of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty called Smith a “troubled and vulnerable young man with intellectual disabilities” who had been failed by the system. Heath said Smith’s decision to proclaim innocence rather than accept responsibility cost him any chance at mercy.
Smith was the 12th person executed in Oklahoma since the state resumed capital punishment in 2021 after a six-year moratorium triggered by botched lethal injections. He was the fourth inmate put to death in the United States this year.
The execution protocol unfolded without visible complications, though Reverend Hood, who stood beside Smith throughout, claimed a single tear fell from Smith’s right eye after he appeared to be dead. Hood called the execution “unnecessary,” asserting that Oklahoma would be no safer than before.
Smith’s story remains one of three lives extinguished and a justice system that took more than two decades to reach its final verdict. For the families of Janet Moore and Sarath Puluru, the wait is over, but the grief endures.
