Metro family nears closure in killing Metro family nears closure in killing
By Julie Bisbee
Published: April 17, 2008
Betty Martin and her family are one step closer to justice.
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Martin and her husband were the host family to a Japanese student who was killed by a man who sits on death row.
Now with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Wednesday on the death penalty, Attorney General Drew Edmondson is seeking an execution date for the student's killer, Terry Lyn Short, 47. Short was convicted in the 1995 killing of 22-year-old Ken Yamamoto, a graphic arts student at Oklahoma City University.
For more than a decade, Martin has been awaiting justice for Yamamoto, who was an exchange student in her home as a high school student.
"He was just our son,” said Martin, who lives southwest of Oklahoma City. "We taught him how to drive a car, we helped him get a driver's license.”
Yamamoto died from serious burns days after Short threw a Molotov cocktail into Yamamoto's apartment in the 7400 block of S Walker. The firebomb was meant for Short's ex-girlfriend, who also lived in the apartment building. Another man was badly burned in the fire.
When Yamamoto first came to stay with the Martins, he barely spoke English. The family helped him acclimate to life in the United States.
Yamamoto lived with the Martins through the last two years of school and then decided to attend college in Oklahoma City.
Yamamoto was an only child, raised in Japan by his mother. Martin said Yamamoto became attached to her husband and the two used to play softball together or practice archery.
Yamamoto died shortly after his mother arrived at the hospital. Kiyoko Yamamoto flew in from Japan in time to say goodbye to her son, Martin said.
The death hit her hard, Martin said. "I think after the trial she just kind of gave up,” Martin said. "She stopped taking treatments for her illness and she eventually died.”
Although Yamamoto's mother will not be able to see justice done for her son in Oklahoma, Martin and her family will take her place.
Attorney General Drew Edmondson asked Wednesday for two execution dates to be set in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling upholding executions by lethal injection.
He filed his request with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. The two executions involve murders in Oklahoma County, he said. One case involves Terry Lyn Short, who was convicted of killing 22-year-old Kenny Yamamoto in 1995. The other involves Kevin Young, convicted of killing Joseph Sutton, 56, in 1996, Edmondson said.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals had postponed all executions rather that staying them after the lethal injection case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, Edmondson said.
Ruling reaction
On the Supreme Court's ruling, Edmondson said: "I am not surprised, but I am grateful that the Supreme Court has issued a fairly strong opinion that the method of execution involving lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”
He said he didn't think the court "was prepared to say that we're going to end capital punishment.”
John Greiner, Capitol Bureau
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