3-year-old Adam Broomhall committed only one crime: waking up Richard Fairchild in the middle of the night.
Richard was the boyfriend of Adam’s mother, and he had spent the whole day drinking with her the night he brutally ki-lled the little boy in Del City, Oklahoma on Nov, 4th, 1993.
The child woke up crying in the middle of the night like every other child does, Fairchild got angry and started beating the boy before burning his body in a furnace. After this, he smashed the little one on the dining table, he became unconscious and never woke up.
The autopsy revealed he di-ed as a result of traumatic brain injury, in total he sustained 26 blows to his body.
This man was on dea-th row from 1996 till November 2022. One keeps wondering why dea-th row inmates spend so much time before being executed.
Footnotes:
Richard Fairchild Who mur-dered a 3-year-old for Disturbing His Sleep
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 on Wednesday to deny clemency to convicted child killer Richard Fairchild.
Fairchild, 62, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Nov. 17 for murdering his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son, Adam Broomhall, in 1993.
His execution is set on his 63rd birthday.
The day he killed Broomhall, Fairchild drank all day with the boy’s mother, according to court records. Later that night at his girlfriend's Del City home, when Broomhall woke up crying, Fairchild began to beat the boy, and later burned both sides of Broomhall’s body by pressing him against a furnace.
Later, Fairchild threw the 24-pound child into a dining table, knocking him into an unconscious state from which he would never awake.
The boy was determined to have died from blunt force trauma to the head, but suffered 26 individual blows to the body.
"Fairchild was Adam's jury, judge and executioner," said Julie Pittman, who is Attorney General John O'Connor's general counsel. "(Adam's) crime? He wet the bed."
The state argued in the hearing it was clear Fairchild sought to hurt the 3-year-old.
“There can be no doubt Fairchild intended to hurt, or even kill Adam,” said Jennifer Crabb, Oklahoma assistant attorney general.
Fairchild’s lawyers did not dispute the brutality of Broomhall’s murder, but contended Fairchild was suffering from a lifetime of traumatic brain injuries himself, which combined with his alcohol and drug use led him to the actions that occurred that night.
“Richie was a good father,” attorney Tricia Russell said. “This was a one-off (incident).”
Fairchild grew up in an abusive home, his lawyers said, and he would go on to suffer various brain injuries stemming from his amateur boxing, and career in the military.
Neuropsychologist Dr. Barry Crown testified to what he believes to be Fairchild’s medical conditions stemming from a lifetime of head trauma. Fairchild has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and his condition has worsened over the past 20 years, Crown said.
The arguments ultimately were not enough to persuade the parole board.
Fairchild did not appear before the parole board Wednesday.
Before voting, the board also heard from the victim's uncle, Michael Hurst, who read a brief written statement from his late mother, the victim's grandmother.
“I beg you, show no mercy to a man who could torture a child,” the letter said.
Hurst closed his comments by asking the parole board personally to “let our family heal.”
After the vote, Hurst told The Oklahoman he hoped the results would allow his family to move on, nearly 30 years later from his nephew’s murder, but that hope came with a caveat.
“I would have rather Adam be here,” Hurst said.
The decision Wednesday means Gov. Kevin Stitt cannot change Fairchild’s death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In Oklahoma, a governor can commute a death row inmate's sentence only if the board recommends clemency.
Fairchild is being held at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
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