Okla. man executed for baby daughter beating death

McALESTER, Oklahoma (Reuters) – Oklahoma executed a
confessed child murderer on Thursday for the 1997 beating death
of his 13-month-old daughter.

James Malicoat, 31, was condemned for beating Tessa
Leadford to death at his home in the south-central Oklahoma
town of Chickasha on February 21, 1997 while the girl’s mother
was at work.

Malicoat admitted slamming Leadford’s head into a dresser a
few days before she died and punching her in the stomach so
hard she stopped breathing on the day of her death.

Malicoat tried to resuscitate Leadford but when he was
unable to revive her, he laid her in her crib and went to bed.
When Tessa’s mother Mary Ann Leadford came home from work and
found the girl not breathing, she and Malicoat rushed the baby
to a hospital emergency room.

Investigators said the extensive bruising on Tessa
Leadford’s body, bite marks and two broken ribs indicated she
had been abused repeatedly for days prior to her death.

Mary Ann Leadford was convicted of first-degree murder for
her role in her daughter’s death and is serving a life
sentence.

On Thursday, while strapped to a gurney in the death
chamber shortly before his execution, Malicoat apologized for
the murder.

“I just want everybody to know how sorry I am this thing
had to happen; any of it,” he said. “I am sorry I caused the
death of another human being. There is nothing I can do to
change it. Contrary to what some people believe I spent many
years going over it in my head. It’s never left me.”

Malicoat was the 83rd person executed in Oklahoma since the
state resumed capital punishment in 1990.

For his last meal, Malicoat requested fried chicken, mashed
potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, biscuits, Dr Pepper and an
apple pie.