James Pavatt
James Pavatt was a U.S. Air Force veteran who served nearly 22 years, overseas and at Tinker Air Force Base, and who taught Sunday school, according to his attorney and the Tulsa World. His family shared home videos that they say portray him as a loving family man, and his daughter and her husband visited him the night before his execution, according to a prison spokesperson. He was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester on November 12, 2026, at age 73, and was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. Pavatt maintained that he did not shoot anyone, and his attorneys argued that prosecutors gave conflicting accounts of who fired the fatal shots, a point the state acknowledged was true of prosecutors' arguments at a co-defendant's trial. The Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency by a 3-2 vote the previous month, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay the execution.
Cause of death, as reported: Executed by the state. His attorneys say he maintained his innocence and that prosecutors gave conflicting accounts at his trial and a co-defendant's trial.
Reported by: Oklahoma Department of Corrections (the agency that held him); media witnesses.
Custody: Serving a sentence.
Sources (20)
- Executions in Oklahoma and Texas include a father who beheaded 3 children
- Texas man who killed 3 children is put to death, hours after an Oklahoma execution
- Oklahoma man is put to death for killing of girlfriend’s husband, with a Texas execution to follow
- Oklahoma man executed for killing of girlfriend’s husband
- Oklahoma Man Executed for 2001 Murder of Affair Partner’s Husband in $800K Insurance Plot
- Death row inmate James Pavatt executed for high-profile 2001 OKC murder
- State of Oklahoma executes James Pavatt for murder of Oklahoma City man in 2001
- Oklahoma inmate who killed lover's husband is executed after lavish final meal
- Oklahoma man executed for killing of girlfriend’s husband, with a Texas lethal injection to follow
- Oklahoma executes James Pavatt for 2001 murder of his lover's husband
- Executions in Oklahoma and Texas include a father who beheaded 3 children
- Oklahoma man is put to death over a 2001 killing, the first in a pair of US executions
- Pavatt executed at OSP
- State of Oklahoma executes James Pavatt, 25 years after the murder of Rob Andrew
- Texas man convicted in beheading of 3 children is put to death, hours after an Oklahoma execution
- Texas executes man convicted in beheading of 3 children
- Texas man executed for beheading kids, as Oklahoma's Pavatt put to death
- Texas man convicted in beheading of 3 children is put to death, hours after an Oklahoma execution - Herald-Banner
- Texas executes man for triple homicide - The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette