Oklahoma death row inmate requests no-frills final meal before execution in double killing

A man on death row in Oklahoma was executed Thursday morning for the fatal shooting of two men in 2001 and made a single request for his final meal.

Phillip Dean Hancock, 59, requested only fried chicken — no sides — for his last meal, The Oklahoman reported, citing the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

Hancock was declared dead at 11:29 a.m. after receiving a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. His execution was delayed as Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt weighed whether to commute his sentence following a clemency recommendation from the state’s Pardon and Parole Board.

It was unclear why the governor’s decision to deny clemency was delayed until shortly after the execution was originally scheduled.

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Hancock had long claimed he shot and killed Robert Jett Jr., 37, and James Lynch, 58, in self-defense after the two men attacked him inside Jett’s home in south Oklahoma City. Hancock’s attorneys claimed at a clemency hearing this month Jett and Lynch were members of outlaw motorcycle gangs and that Jett lured Hancock, who was unarmed, to Jett’s home. 

A female witness said Jett ordered Hancock to get inside a large cage before swinging a metal bar at him. After Jett and Lynch attacked him, his attorneys said, Hancock managed to take Jett’s pistol from him and shoot them both.

“Please understand the awful situation I found myself in,” Hancock told members of the Pardon and Parole Board via a video feed from the penitentiary. “I have no doubt they would have killed me. They forced me to fight for my life.”

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But attorneys for the state argued Hancock gave differing accounts of what exactly happened and that his testimony didn’t align with physical evidence.

Assistant Attorney General Joshua Lockett also cited a witness who testified that after Hancock shot Jett inside the house, he followed him into the backyard. The witness recalled that a wounded Jett said, “I’m going to die.” Hancock responded, “Yes, you are,” before shooting him again, Lockett said.

“Chasing someone down, telling them you are about to kill them and then doing it is not self-defense,” Lockett said.

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Hancock is the fourth Oklahoma inmate to be executed this year. The next execution scheduled in Oklahoma is for James Ryder Feb. 1. Ryder was sentenced to death for the 1999 killing of Daisy Hallum, 70, and to life without parole for killing her son, Sam Hallum, 38, in Pittsburg County.