While Raymond Eugene Johnson says he is a changed man and deserves mercy, the loved ones of his victims say justice is long overdue for his horrific crimes that nearly destroyed their families.
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An Oklahoma death row inmate scheduled to be executed this week said he knows he committed a “horrible crime” when he killed his ex-girlfriend and young daughter, but he didn’t deserve to die. Loved ones of his victims say they long for justice.
Raymond Eugene Johnson, 52, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday, May 14, for the brutal 2007 murders of 24-year-old Brooke Whitaker and her 7-month-old baby girl, Kaia. Johnson repeatedly struck Whittaker with a claw hammer and then set her and her Tulsa home on fire.
Kaia died in the fire, while Whittaker, a mother of four, died in hospital from severe burns and head injuries.
“Raymond Johnson is a vicious murderer who violently attacked and tortured Brooke Whitaker before ultimately setting her and her young daughter on fire,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement last month. “Mr Johnson has never taken full responsibility for his unconscionable actions that not only devastated his family, but also left his three young children without their mother and infant sister.”
Johnson has argued that he is a changed man and should be pardoned from the death penalty.
“This was a horrific crime and the worst moment of my life,” Johnson said at a recent pardon hearing. “There are no versions of that story, only the terrible truth… (but) my crime does not define who I am. It defines a moment that I deeply regret.”
The Pardons Board rejected his request by a vote of 5-0.
Here’s what you need to know about the execution, including who Brooke Whitaker and baby Kaia were.
When will the execution take place?
Raymond Eugene Johnson’s execution at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester is scheduled for Thursday, May 14th at 10 a.m. Central Time.
If the execution goes ahead, Johnson would be the 11th person to be executed in the United States this year, and the second in Oklahoma.
What did Raymond Eugene Johnson do?
According to court records and his own confession, on June 23, 2007, Raymond Eugene Johnson attacked his ex-girlfriend, Brooke Whitaker, at her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
According to court records, Johnson told police that he and Whitaker got into an argument, and Whitaker pushed Johnson and grabbed a knife. Johnson then grabbed a claw hammer and hit her in the head about six times, she told police.
Whittaker was still alive and begged Johnson to cooperate, promising not to tell police. Johnson said he got a gas can and doused Whitaker and the house with gasoline because he was afraid of going back to prison. He lit a fire and left.
“Mr. Johnson made a deliberate decision to kill Brooke and her infant in a manner that caused maximum pain,” Assistant Attorney General Amy Ealy recently told the Pardons Committee. Board members are considering whether to grant Johnson clemency.
“Mr. Johnson could have let the baby live without increasing the risk of arrest, but instead Mr. Johnson left Mr. Kaia to die in the flames,” Mr. Ely told the committee.
In some cases, “the decision to seek or impose the death penalty is a close call,” she said.
“This is not one of those cases,” she added.
Angie Short, Brooke Whitaker’s aunt, told the board that Whitaker and Kaia’s bodies were too badly disfigured for loved ones to see them.
“I can’t help but think of the fear and pain that Brooke and Kaia went through before their deaths,” she told the Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole. “We are so grateful that Brooke’s other children were not home that night. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have murdered all of them and we would have had five funerals.”
Who is Brooke Whitaker and her baby Kaia?
Brooke Whitaker was a loving 24-year-old mother of four known for her contagious laugh and bear hugs, loved ones recently told the parole board. They described Kya as a curly-haired baby who brought joy to loved ones for the first seven months of her life.
“I’ll never forget her hugs,” Short said tearfully about her niece Brooke. “She wrapped her arms around me so tightly that it was almost painful. I wish more than anything I could have felt her hug just one more time.”
Logan Kleck, who was just 7 years old when his mother was murdered, told the board in a letter that thinking about his mother and baby sister reminded him of all that was lost.
“My mother didn’t just miss a moment, she missed my entire life,” Kleck wrote. “She missed my first day of middle school and high school. She missed my prom. She wasn’t there for my first heartbreak, she wasn’t there for my first true love. She wasn’t there to see me walk across the stage at my high school graduation. She missed the day I welcomed my son into this world. She couldn’t hold him. And she won’t be able to hold my second son.”
As for Kaia, Kleck said her infant sister “couldn’t say her first words or take her first steps.”
“She never went to kindergarten or lost her first tooth,” Kleck wrote. “The opportunity to grow was taken away from her.”
Carolyn Short, Brooke’s grandmother and Kaia’s great-grandmother, said Brooke is her first grandchild.
“Words cannot express how deeply I loved her,” she said. “Words of pure joy cannot describe what she brought to my life. She was the most beautiful baby girl I have ever seen. She is truly a gift from heaven.”
Not only did Short have to bury her granddaughter and great-granddaughter, but her daughter, Brooke’s mother Andra, also died of a heart attack eight months ago, “a wound reopened by 17 years of constant stress and anxiety and endless legal proceedings.”
“I watched her heart break, literally and figuratively,” Short said. “She was waiting for the justice she never lived to see.”
Kleck said executing Johnson “will not erase nearly 20 years of suffering.”
“That’s what will finally stop him from continuing to hurt us,” she said. “There will be no more hearings, no more news articles, no more updates with his name attached to their names. This will isolate their names and ensure that they are remembered for them, not for what he did to them.”
Why does Raymond Johnson believe he should be saved?
At the Pardons Board hearing, Johnson apologized for killing Brooke and Kaia, but spent much of his time talking about how he was a changed man who had discovered God and helped others avoid destructive paths.
“I killed two people that I loved dearly,” he said, adding that he also believes his death sentence caused his grandmother to die of a broken heart.
“I ask for your forgiveness,” he said. “Give me the opportunity to save more lives, stop more violence, and lead more people to the path of salvation.”
Johnson described himself as “a father, a man of God, a teacher, someone who does his best, strives to be the best he can be, and someone who gets up when he falls down.”
“He’s never depressed, because not only are my children learning from my life lessons, but so are other men within the walls of this prison, and so are other people outside of prison,” he said. “This is my legacy, and I would like the opportunity to continue it in return for the two precious lives I was unable to save for my own.”
In a video presented to the board in 2024, Johnson’s son Kyler said his father taught Johnson important life lessons.
“I love you, Daddy,” he said.
When is the next execution?
The next execution in the United States could be late Thursday afternoon.
Texas was scheduled to execute Edward Lee Buzbee, who robbed and murdered a retired Texas Christian University professor in 2004, on Thursday night. But on May 8, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary injunction, citing Buzbee’s intellectual disability. If the state is successful in appealing the ruling, further executions could proceed.
However, if Busby’s execution is postponed indefinitely, the next execution will take place on May 20th in Arizona. McGill was convicted of murder in 2002 after dousing a couple with gasoline and setting them on fire.
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter covering capital punishment, cold case investigations and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
