A Mississippi man who spent almost fifty years on death row for the murder of a bank loan officer’s wife during a ransom plot was executed on Wednesday. 

Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran with PTSD, received a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. 

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Jordan’s last appeals on Wednesday afternoon without providing any explanation, and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves also denied Jordan’s clemency bid. 

The entrance to the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. (Mississippi Department of Corrections)

In January 1976, Jordan contacted the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport, requesting a conversation with a loan officer. After being informed that Charles Marter was available, he ended the call. 

He then looked up the Marters’ home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter. Jordan took her to a forest and fatally shot her before calling her husband. 

He claimed Marter was safe and demanded $25,000. The road to Jordan’s execution included four trials and numerous appeals. 

Lawyers for Jordan, who served three tours in Vietnam, argued he never received due process. 

An execution chamber in a Texas prison.  (AP)

“He was never given what, for a long time, the law has entitled him to, which is a mental health professional that is independent of the prosecution and can assist his defense,” said Krissy Nobile, the director of Mississippi’s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, who represented Jordan. 

“Because of that, his jury never got to hear about his Vietnam experiences.”