Oklahoma Man, 73, Executed Over Plot to Kill Lover’s Husband

James Pavatt, an Oklahoma man convicted of conspiring with his lover to kill her estranged husband 25 years ago, was executed Thursday without making a final statement.

Pavatt, 73, died by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was convicted in the 2001 killing of Rob Andrew, a 39-year-old advertising executive who was shot in his garage while retrieving his two young children shortly before Thanksgiving.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections said Pavatt was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. local time. Officials characterized the execution as “uneventful,” and local station KOKH reported that he offered no last words.

This photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows James Pavatt in February 2023. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)

KOCO reported that Pavatt’s final meal included a strawberry milkshake and a barbecue spread featuring smoked chicken, brisket, pulled pork, fried okra, baked beans and pickles.

A jury found Pavatt guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He had been involved in an affair with Brenda Andrew, Rob Andrew’s wife. She was tried separately and also received a death sentence.

In the weeks leading up to the shooting, Rob Andrew told police he believed someone was targeting him after the brake lines on his vehicle were severed.

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The Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla., Nov. 17, 2021. (Bryan Terry/The Oklahoman/USA Today Network)

Brenda Andrew later told authorities that masked intruders had shot her in the arm and killed her husband at the Oklahoma City home they once shared. Prosecutors argued instead that Andrew and Pavatt had planned the murder together.

After the shooting, the two fled to Mexico with Andrew’s children. They were captured three months later as they attempted to return to the United States.

During a clemency hearing last month, Pavatt continued to deny responsibility and said Andrew had manipulated him.

“It was not until my trial that I began to see the extent to which I had been manipulated by Brenda,” he told the board. “I can see why the jury believed that we were both involved in Rob’s murder.”

An entrance sign and guard tower at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. (Shepard Sherbell/Corbis Saba/Corbis via Getty Images)

Prosecutors argued that both defendants were equally accountable for the killing, whether Pavatt or Andrew fired the fatal shots.

Pavatt’s execution was the first of two scheduled in the United States on Thursday. Later that evening in Texas, John Allen Rubio, 46, was scheduled to die for the 2003 stabbing and beheading of three young children in his care in Brownsville. The victims were 3 years old, 14 months old and 2 months old.