Child killer who raped seven-year-old girl and left her body in a field executed today

A man found guilty of the 1984 abduction, sexual assault, and murder of a seven-year-old girl was executed in Oklahoma today.

Richard Rojem, 66, received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and was declared dead at 10:16 am, as confirmed by prison authorities. He had always denied any role in the death of his former stepdaughter, Layla Cummings.

The young girl's disfigured and partly dressed body was discovered in a field in Washita County near Burns Flat on July 7, 1984, having been fatally stabbed. Rojem had previously been convicted for the rape of two teenage girls in Michigan.

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Prosecutors maintained that Rojem bore a grudge against Layla Cummings because she had accused him of sexual abuse, which led to his divorce from her mother and a return to jail for breaching parole conditions.

During a clemency hearing earlier this month, Rojem's defence argued that DNA evidence under the child's nails did not implicate him. "If my client's DNA is not present, he should not be convicted," said his lawyer Jack Fisher, reports the Mirror US .

In a heartfelt letter to the parole board, Layla's mother , Mindy Lynn Cummings, shared her enduring sorrow. "For many years, the shock of losing her and the knowledge of the sheer terror, pain and suffering that she endured at the hands of this soulless monster was more than I could fathom how to survive day to day," she expressed.

Rojem, testifying via a prison video link, maintained his innocence in the tragic death of the young girl. However, his pleas fell on deaf ears as the panel unanimously decided against recommending clemency to the governor with a decisive 5-0 vote.

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"I wasn't a good human being for the first part of my life, and I don't deny that," Rojem admitted from behind bars, dressed in a red jumpsuit with his wrists shackled. "But I went to prison. I learned my lesson and I left all that behind."

The prosecution was not convinced, citing substantial evidence for Rojem's conviction. His fingerprint was found on a cup from a pub he'd visited just before the child's terrifying ordeal, and they matched a condom wrapper near her discarded body to one from his home.

A Washita County jury took less than an hour to find Rojem guilty back in 1985, delivering a verdict after just 45 minutes. Despite appeals courts overturning his death sentences twice due to trial errors, a Custer County jury ultimately reaffirmed his death sentence in 2007.

Oklahoma, infamous for having the highest number of executions per capita in the US since the reinstatement of the death penalty in '76, has continued its contentious reign. The state has carried out 13 executions since resuming the use of lethal injections in October 2021, following a series of shockingly botched attempts that had previously led to a temporary halt.