Michael Smith's Final 3 Words Before Oklahoma Execution

Michael Smith, who was convicted for fatally shooting two people in 2002, gave his final three words before he was executed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary on Thursday.

Smith confessed to two separate shooting deaths of Janet Moore, 41, and Sharath Pulluru, 22, but later tried to appeal his conviction. After spending over 20 years on death row and multiple failed attempts at an appeal, Smith died by lethal injection on Thursday mid-morning.

When asked if he would like to say any last words, Smith said, "Nah, I'm good," according to The Associated Press.

Smith's death was the first execution in Oklahoma this year. He was the 12th person to be executed since the state resumed executions in 2021.

Moore's son Phillip Zachary Jr. and niece Morgan Miller-Perkins were at the execution. In a statement read by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond on the family's behalf, he said, in part: "Justice has been served."

"Janet and Sharath were murdered simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time; that was all. I am grateful that justice has been served," Drummond said in his own statement.

However, Smith said at a clemency hearing last month, "I didn't commit these crimes. I didn't kill these people." He claimed that he was "high on drugs," adding, "I don't even remember getting arrested."

He did express his "deepest apologies and deepest sorrows to the families," but did not take responsibility for the killings.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied Smith clemency in a 4 to 1 vote.

According to prosecutors, Smith confessed to the police and two other people about his role in the killings. Prosecutors said he was a gang member and killed Moore because he was looking for her son, who he mistakenly thought had told the cops about his whereabouts.

After Smith killed Moore, he went after Pulluru, a store clerk who Smith believed had disrespected his gang during a newspaper interview, according to prosecutors.

Drummond said Smith, a member of the Oak Grove Posse Kerr Village Crips gang, was on the run for a separate killing at the time of the murders—which the attorney general said put him among the 10 percent of death row inmates who have killed multiple times.

Mark Henricksen, Smith's attorney, argued that his client should not receive the death penalty and instead should just get life in prison. He claimed that Smith was in a drug-induced haze when he confessed to the police and that key parts of his confession aren't supported by facts.

However, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has said that Smith's confession was corroborated by "two additional confessions and physical evidence from both crime scenes."

Henricksen also argued that Smith was intellectually disabled, hoping to get lenience from the judicial system. Meanwhile, Drummond said Smith's IQ scores made his intellectual disability claim statutorily ineligible.

Newsweek reached out to Henricksen via online form for comment.