Oklahoma Executes Second Man for Jeweler Murder

Jan 31

MCALESTER, Oklahoma  - A man convicted of murdering an Oklahoma jeweler for his rings and buckets of quarters was executed on Thursday, two days after his convicted accomplice was put to death, prison officials said.

David Wayne Woodruff, 42, was pronounced dead at 9:12 p.m. (10:12 p.m. EST), two minutes after receiving an injection of fatal chemicals at a state prison in McAlester, Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said.

"We're not here for a social event, we're here for a killing. Name's David Wayne Woodruff. Let's get this show on the road," he said in his last words from the death chamber gurney.

Woodruff was convicted of strangling and stabbing Oklahoma City jeweler Roger Joel Sarfaty, 52, in Sarfaty's apartment in 1985 and stealing his rings and buckets of quarters that Sarfaty kept for poker games.

Woodruff's accomplice, John Joseph Romano, was executed in the same chamber on Tuesday.

The two men were also sentenced to death for fatally stabbing 61-year-old Lloyd Thompson, 61, in 1986.

Woodruff's last requested meal was two cheeseburgers, fried potatoes and a lemon-lime slushy, according to prison officials.

It was the state's second execution this year and the 50th execution since Oklahoma reinstated the death penalty in 1977 and resumed executions in 1990