Vietnam veteran executed in Mississippi after nearly 50 years on death row for 1976 murder

close Video

Teen escapes house of horrors after years in captivity

Branndon Mosley, 41, and Brenda Spencer, 38, were charged with confining and abusing an 18-year-old victim in their home since 2018. (Credit: FOX 29)

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

A Mississippi man who had been on death row for nearly five decades for the murder of the wife of a bank loan officer in a ransom scheme was executed Wednesday. 

Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran with PTSD, received a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. 

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Jordan’s remaining appeals Wednesday afternoon without comment, and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves had denied Jordan’s request for clemency. 

‘CASANOVA KILLER’ SET TO BE EXECUTED NEARLY 30 YEARS AFTER MURDER SPREE

Richard Jordan, 79, was put to death in Mississippi Wednesday for the 1976 murder of a bank loan officer’s wife in a ransom scheme.  (AP)

Jordan visited with family, lawyers and spiritual advisers Wednesday, said Marc McClure, Mississippi State Penitentiary superintendent.

Jordan was sentenced to death in 1976 for kidnapping and killing Edwina Marter, a mother of two young children, earlier that year. He is one of 22 people across the country sentenced for crimes in the 1970s who are still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Eric Marter, who was 11 when his mother was killed, said neither he, his brother nor his father would attend the execution.

“It should have happened a long time ago,” he said of the execution. “I’m not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

UTAH KILLER WITH DEMENTIA IS COMPETENT ENOUGH FOR DEATH SENTENCE TO BE CARRIED OUT, JUDGE RULES

The entrance to the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. (Mississippi Department of Corrections)

In January 1976, Jordan called the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport and asked to speak with a loan officer. After he was told Charles Marter could speak to him, he hung up. 

He then looked up the Marters’ home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter. Jordan took her to a forest and fatally shot her before calling her husband. 

He claimed Marter was safe and demanded $25,000. The road to Jordan’s execution included four trials and numerous appeals. 

Lawyers for Jordan, who served three tours in Vietnam, argued he never received due process. 

An execution chamber in a Texas prison.  (AP)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“He was never given what, for a long time, the law has entitled him to, which is a mental health professional that is independent of the prosecution and can assist his defense,” said Krissy Nobile, the director of Mississippi’s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, who represented Jordan. 

“Because of that, his jury never got to hear about his Vietnam experiences.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Louis Casiano is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to louis.casiano@fox.com.