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Nine murders. Nine death sentences. But the mass murderer was executed for killing a North Dakota family

At Oklahoma State Penitentiary on July 1, 1995, Roger Dale Stafford was executed by lethal injection at 12:22 a.m. after a last meal, following 17 years of appeals and delays.
On June 22, 1978, the Lorenz family was ambushed on Interstate 35 after Verna Stafford feigned a breakdown; Roger and his brother demanded money, shot Melvin and Linda, while Richard fled and was later killed.
About a month later, Stafford and his brother attacked the Sirloin Stockade, herding six people into a meat cooler and gunning them down, after a 10-year-old boy found pistols linked to the crimes.
Prosecutors secured convictions for nine murders but executed Roger Dale Stafford for the North Dakota family of three; Verna Stafford pleaded guilty and received two life sentences.
Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson said Stafford became a symbol of appeals delays, while the Lorenz family pressed for justice and Dennis Lorenz later became a deputy sheriff.

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Nine murders. Nine death sentences. But the mass murderer was executed for killing a North Dakota family

McALESTER, OK — It took 17 years to kill Roger Dale Stafford. One appeal after another, an earlier stay of execution, the 43-year-old mass murderer — who killed at least nine people during Oklahoma’s “bloody summer” in 1978, including a North Dakotan family of three — sat down with his third wife, Mickey, for his last meal of foot-long hot dogs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary on July 1, 1995. Despite all the evidence against him, including on…

7 hours ago·Cherokee County, United States

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