A Hurricane Katrina evacuee who became a death row inmate after killing two men in a hail of gunfire in Oklahoma City is set to become the second person executed in the U.S. this week.
Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Kendrick Antonio Simpson on Thursday, Feb. 12, for the double murder of two young men named Glen Palmer and Anthony Jones in 2006.
Simpson, 45, is a New Orleans native who fled to Oklahoma as a Hurricane Katrina refugee in 2005. His execution comes about a month after an emotional clemency hearing during which a parole board deciding his fate heard from the victims' families, a survivor of the shooting, and Simpson himself.
"I'm ashamed of being a murderer," Simpson told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. "I don't make any excuses, I don't blame others, and they didn't deserve what happened to them."
If it moves forward as expected, Simpson's execution will be the third in the U.S. this year and will come two days after Florida executed a death row inmate for killing a traveling salesman in 1989.
