JACKSON, Miss. (AP) 鈥 Mississippi鈥檚 longest-serving death row inmate is set to be executed Wednesday nearly five decades after he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer鈥檚 wife in a violent ransom scheme.
Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. He is one of several people on Mississippi's death row suing the state over its , which they claim is inhumane.
Jordan would be the third person executed in the state in the last 10 years; the was in December 2022.
His execution comes a day after in what is shaping up to be a year with .
Jordan was sentenced to death in 1976 for killing and kidnapping Edwina Marter, a mother of two young children, earlier that year. As of the beginning of the year, Jordan is one of 22 people across the country sentenced for crimes in the 1970s who are still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Eric Marter, who was 11 when his mother was killed, said neither he, his brother, nor his father will attend the execution, but other family members will be there.
鈥淚t should have happened a long time ago,鈥 he said of the execution. 鈥淚鈥檓 not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.鈥
Mississippi Supreme Court records show that in January 1976, Jordan called the Gulf 好色tv Bank in Gulfport, Mississippi, and asked to speak with a loan officer. After he was told Charles Marter could speak to him, he hung up. He then looked up the Marters鈥 home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter. According to court records, Jordan took her to a forest and shot her to death before calling her husband, claiming she was safe and demanding $25,000.
鈥淗e needs to be punished,鈥 Eric Marter said.
The execution ends Jordan鈥檚 decades-long court process that included four trials and numerous appeals. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition that claimed he was denied due process rights.
鈥淗e was never given what, for a long time, the law has entitled him to, which is a mental health professional that is independent of the prosecution and can assist his defense,鈥 said lawyer Krissy Nobile, the director of Mississippi鈥檚 Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, who represents Jordan. 鈥淏ecause of that, his jury never got to hear about his Vietnam experiences.鈥
A recent petition asking Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves for echoed Nobile鈥檚 claim. It argues Jordan developed PTSD after serving three back-to-back tours in the Vietnam War, which could have been a factor in his crime.
鈥淗is war service, his war trauma, was considered not relevant in his murder trial,鈥 said Franklin Rosenblatt, the president of the 好色tv Institute of Military Justice, who wrote the petition on Jordan鈥檚 behalf. 鈥淲e just know so much more than we did 10 years ago, and certainly during Vietnam, about the effect of war trauma on the brain and how that affects ongoing behaviors.鈥
Eric Marter said he doesn鈥檛 buy that argument.
鈥淚 know what he did. He wanted money, and he couldn鈥檛 take her with him. And he 鈥 so he did what he did,鈥 he said.
