Oklahoma to Execute Kendrick Simpson for 2006 Double Drive‑By Killing

Oklahoma is set to carry out its first execution of 2026 on Thursday, putting to death 45‑year‑old Kendrick Simpson for the 2006 drive‑by shooting deaths of Anthony Jones, 19, and Glen Palmer, 20, after a nightclub altercation in northwest Oklahoma City. Simpson, who fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and later admitted the killings at a clemency hearing last month, apologized directly to the victims’ families but the state Pardon and Parole Board narrowly denied clemency, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused a last‑minute appeal on Wednesday. Prosecutors said Simpson loaded an assault rifle into a car, followed the victims from a gas station and fired about 20 rounds into their vehicle, killing both men; some relatives told the board they support his execution, while his lawyers cited severe childhood trauma and PTSD in arguing his crime and history do not represent the "worst of the worst." Attorney General Gentner Drummond praised the clemency denial and called Simpson a "ruthless and violent killer," and the state plans to use its standard three‑drug lethal‑injection protocol of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The execution will be only the second in the United States this year, following Florida’s Tuesday execution of Ronald Palmer Heath, and comes after 47 executions were carried out nationwide in 2025 amid growing national debate over capital punishment’s fairness and use.