Media witnesses at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester report he died at 10:17 a.m.

Littlejohn was convicted in the shooting death of 31-year-old Kenny Meers during a robbery of Meers’s convenience store in Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board had voted 3-2 to recommend clemency for Littlejohn last month. The ultimate decision rested with Gov. Kevin Stitt, who did not take the Board’s recommendation.

"These decisions are very difficult and I do not make them lightly," Stitt said in a statement. “A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death. [. . .] As a law and order governor, I have a hard time unilaterally overturning that decision.”

The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty took issue not just with Stitt’s decision, but with how he issued it.

“He didn’t even show Mr. Littlejohn enough respect to make a formal statement to deny clemency,” said coalition Chair Don Heath in a statement. “This is now the third time that Gov. Stitt has rejected a clemency recommendation from the Pardon and Parole Board and he didn’t bother to let the condemned man know that he was denying clemency until the last minute.”

State Rep. Jason Lowe, D-Oklahoma City, also criticized the Governor’s decision to deny clemency, pointing out that Stitt “hand-picked” the Pardon and Parole Board members and still rejected their recommendation.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond argued against clemency at the Parole Board hearing and commended Stitt’s decision to let the execution proceed.

“Justice has been served for the murder of Kenny Meers,” Drummond said in a statement. “I pray that today brings some measure of peace to the Meers family who has waited 32 long years for justice to be served.”

But the decadeslong gap between the crime and the execution came up at Wednesday’s Parole Board hearing. Littlejohn told the board and the victim’s family that he had grown into a different person than the 22-year-old who killed Meers, according to reporting from Oklahoma Voice.