Oklahoma executes man for 1985 slaying of schoolteacher

By SEAN MURPHY
Associated Press

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma has executed a man for the 1985 shooting death of an Oklahoma City-area schoolteacher. Bigler Stouffer II received a three-drug lethal injection Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. The 79-year-old had maintained his innocence in the attack on Linda Reaves and her boyfriend, Doug Ivens, that left Reaves dead and Ivens seriously injured. The execution proceeded after courts rejected Stouffer’s claim that the state’s lethal injection method would result in unconstitutional pain and suffering. Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor said in statement that the execution “was carried out with zero complications.” The Rev. Howard Potts was in the death chamber with Stouffer. He says Stouffer “was totally at peace.”