Supporters Of Death Row Inmate Gilbert Postelle Ask Stitt To Halt Execution

OKLAHOMA CITY – News 9

In a long-shot plea, supporters of death row inmate Gilbert Postelle are calling on Gov. Kevin Stitt to stop his execution.

Postelle has been on death row since 2008 after being convicted in a 2005 quadruple murder on Oklahoma City’s southeast side.

About forty people rallied outside the Governor’s mansion urging him to stay the February 17 execution. Victims’ advocates called the gathering insulting. The state pardon and parole board have already declined to recommend clemency back in December.

“We pray that you would help the hearts of all of us to see the image of God in every human being,” pastor Israel Hogue prayed Tuesday morning.

Oklahoma governors have rarely stayed executions, a move outside of the state’s pardon and parole board system. Most recently, Gov. Mary Fallin issued a 60-day stay for death row inmate Richard Glossip. His execution has since been put on hold while a federal lawsuit against the state’s execution protocol moves forward.

“He’s a dad, a son, a brother and a friend,” Postelle’s fiancé Jackie Thompson said. “How can the system say it’s wrong to kill but yet they do it. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

“What happened to her, it just devastated me. I was beside myself,” Amy Wright’s uncle Larry Lyles told News9 in 2020.

In 2005, Wright, James Alderson, Terry Smith and James Swindle Jr were shot multiple times by now 35-year-old Gilbert Postelle.

According to police reports, Postelle shot more than “30 rounds” from an “AK-47 style rifle” “striking all four victims.”

He was sentenced to death in 2008.

“Every day, I mean, I think about this stuff. Every day I see something similar to it on the television. It just brings back old memories,” Lyles said.

Tuesday, the Victims’ Innocence Project, representing victims’ families said in a statement, “…media outlets are choosing to give (the protest) a platform to make a public spectacle of the victim’s pain and trauma. This shameful display is not acceptable.”

“He deserves a second chance,” Thompson said. “Execution affects more than one person .”