John Michael Hooker

John Michael Hooker (October 9, 1953 – March 25, 2003) was an American serial killer who killed his girlfriend and her mother in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1988, after having served time for a manslaughter conviction as a teenager. For the latter crimes, Hooker was convicted, sentenced to death and executed in 2003.

First killing On February 13, 1971, the 17-year-old Hooker was attending a party at the Hamilton Courts neighborhood when he got into an argument with one of the guests. In the resulting scuffle, he pulled out a gun and opened fire, killing 18-year-old Alta K. Lang and injuring two others, the 20-year-old host Claudia Boyce and 17-year-old Charles Edwards Nathenia. The resulting disturbance was quickly reported to local police, who broke up the party upon arrival and booked four men into custody, including Hooker, on a variety of charges. However, upon conducting a test on Hooker's hands using paraffin wax, authorities were able to determine that he had recently fired a weapon, and subsequently charged him with Lang's murder.

The pair attempted to reconcile on at least one occasion, with Hooker even offering to marry her, but this arrangement did not work out, with Stokes later moving out to live with her mother at an apartment in Providence Apartments. Enraged by this, Hooker decided to kill her, with one friend claiming that he had repeatedly stated his intention to do so. On March 27, 1988, Hooker armed himself with a butcher knife and broke into Stokes' apartment, where he proceeded to stab her to death. Not long after, Stokes' mother, 53-year-old Drusilla Morgan, went to check what was going on, but was herself attacked and stabbed to death as well. With his clothes still visibly bloodied, Hooker calmly left the crime scene and returned to his own apartment. DNA tests conducted on his bloodstained pants proved that he was indeed the killer, pointing out that his blood type group, O, was present on the victims' bodies, both of whom were Type B.

After having his final appeals, a stay of execution and a habeas corpus denied by the Supreme Court, Hooker was executed via lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester on March 25, 2003. After consulting with his spiritual advisor, Hooker readied himself on the gurney and smiled at the witnesses, informing them that he was at peace. His final words were "Y'all stay up. I'm out."

Gilchrist would later be dismissed from her position due to "flawed casework analysis" and "laboratory mismanagement". She denied any wrongdoing until her death in 2015, claiming that the true reason for her dismissal was a complaint for sexual assault against her supervisor.