Lawmen who investigated nine murders not surprised by stay of execution
Lawmen who investigated nine murders not surprised by stay of execution

Charles Gaylor

Published: July 15, 2008

This article was originally published in The Oklahoman Tuesday, April 3, 1984

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Monday's stay of execution for Roger Dale Stafford, convicted of nine Oklahoma murders, was not unexpected by many of the people who worked on the eight-month investigation that led to the arrest of the Alabama-born drifter in April 1979.

Most expressed disappointment at the proceedings and many wondered how long the appeals process should be allowed to continue.

"It came as no surprise to me," said Oklahoma City Police Sgt. Don Pennington. As a homicide detective in 1978, he worked to find a link between the killings of Melvin and Linda Lorenz, their 12-year-old son Richard and six slayings at an Oklahoma City Sirloin Stockade.

After ballistic reports and the discovery of the guns used in the murders in a northeast Oklahoma City field linked the killings, Pennington and his partner, Ron Owens, helped to find the suspects in the cases.

"I heard last night that he was scheduled for execution Tuesday morning and there hadn't been a stay granted. "(But,) there wasn't any doubt in my mind (that a stay was forthcoming)."

Pennington, who now supervises the department's helicopter unit, said he was disappointed.

"Personally, I feel that the man was tried and convicted by a jury and sentenced. I think he's got a perfect right to all the appeal processes, as does everyone else in that position. But, it just seems like it never stops.

"How many times can an appealate court evaluate the whole system?

"It just seems to me that if there were some kind of trial error, or rights violation, it would have been picked up by an appellate court in the last five years."

Det. Bill Cook, who along with then Det. Les McCaleb saw the steakhouse case from the beginning to its end, was the most vocal in his distaste for Monday's ruling.

"It's a shame. I hope it's just a temporary thing and I'm hoping that justice will be met within the next couple of weeks."

The veteran homicide detective said he was not surprised. "I've been around the system for a long time."

McCaleb, who is now a homicide sergeant, is at an FBI school in Quantico, Va., and was unavailable for comment.

Former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Arthur Linville headed that department's task force put together to solve the Lornez murders and later the steakhouse killings after evidence linking the two was found.

"It's normal of the judicial proceedings. I would not necessarily be critical of it, ... I am critical in my mind of the fact that after the evidence and the trial, that here he has participated in the murder of nine human beings and if you get to thinking back, that was six years ago.

"You're talking about for so many years that he has been able to live without being executed, that if the death penalty is to be a deterrent, then it has to be sure and swift, and you just don't have that today."

Linville, who left the OSBI in 1981 and now runs Polygraph Service in southwest Oklahoma City, said he was not concerned about Monday's decision to, temporarily at least, spare Stafford's life.

"When you look at the magnitude of the state taking a person's life, that dictates that the state proceed with caution and that all safeguards available to Mr. Stafford be afforded him."

But, Linville said he thinks those safeguards could have been taken in the year following Stafford's conviction for the crimes.

However, all the lawmen say they are certain Stafford eventually will meet his fate on a hospital gurney inside the green and tan colored walls of the death chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

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