Death row inmate Benjamin Cole was executed Thursday morning at the state penitentiary in McAlester for the 2002 murder of his baby daughter, authorities said.
Cole was declared dead at 10:22 a.m. despite his attorneys’ efforts to spare his life, claiming that him forcibly bending his 9-month-old daughter Brianna backward and killing her was due to his “severe mental illness.”
Last month, the attorneys told the state’s Pardon and Parole Board that Cole suffered a growing lesion on his brain in addition to his paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis.
But state attorneys responded that when Cole brutally murdered the baby, he was rather angered by her cries that disturbed him while he played a video game.
“He is not severely mentally ill. There is nothing in the constitution or jurisprudence that prevents his execution,” Assistant Attorney General Ashley Willis said.
“Although his attorneys claim Cole is mentally ill to the point of catatonia, the fact is that Cole fully cooperated with a mental evaluation in July of this year,” AG John O’Connor said.
