Jimmy Dale Bland, 49, was executed for killing Doyle Windle Rains, 62, of Tillman County. The lethal injection was administered at 6:12 p.m., and Bland was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m.

Before the execution, Bland said a few things, but much of what he said could not be heard because the sound system between the execution chamber and the viewing chamber was not working properly.

"I'm sorry for what happened," he could be heard saying to his family. "I love you all."

His mother, two sisters, a brother and a spiritual adviser witnessed his execution.

When he shot Rains in 1996, Bland had been out of prison less than a year.

He had served about 20 years of a 60-year sentence for killing Raymond Prentice of Grandfield and kidnapping Prentice's wife and son in 1975.

The killing that put him on death row happened after Rains hired Bland to help him do construction work.

On Nov. 14, 1996, Rains let Bland borrow his Cadillac to visit his girlfriend in Oklahoma City. When Bland returned to Rains' home in Manitou, the two men began arguing, and Bland shot Rains in the back of the head with a .22-caliber rifle.

He then took Rains' body to a creek and left it there under some logs.

Rains, the former mayor of Manitou, was a compassionate, friendly man who was always willing to help anyone, Christina Stringer, his foster daughter, said at the prison before the execution.

"He helped Jimmy when no one else would have anything to do with him," Stringer said.

She said she had tried not to judge Bland on his past.

"Windle taught me to try to find good in everyone," Stringer said. "I didn't know much about the first killing he (Bland) had committed. I just knew he was a kid and Windle was giving him a second chance."

Raymond Prentice's son, Ronnie Prentice, was 3 or 4 years old when he was kidnapped but says he remembers most of what happened the night his father was killed.

"One of the things I remember is when he (Bland) dragged my dad in the house -- when he drug him in by his boots -- and I remember all the blood," Ronnie Prentice said before the execution, which he attended.

"I remember my mom hollering, my mom asking him, of course, to cover him up because I was right there."

Bland was 17 at the time.

He was diagnosed with lung cancer last year, records show. Since then, he has had radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

Ronnie Prentice said he was angered to learn that Bland might not be executed because of his cancer.

"He killed two men -- cold-blooded -- kidnapped me and my mom, shot at all the cops during that, threatened to shoot me, threatened to shoot my mom," he said, "and we want to keep him around?"

Bland's request for a stay of execution based on his terminal cancer was filed June 14, and on Friday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals voted 3-2 against a stay.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied his request for clemency Tuesday afternoon.

Jaclyn Cosgrove 581-8300
jaclyn.cosgrove@tulsaworld.com