JUST IN: Michael Dewayne Smith Execution | Crime, Last Meal + Final Words

On April 4th, 2024, after spending more than 21 years on death row, Michael Dewayne Smith was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. In this video, we’ll uncover what happened, his last meal, and his last words. But this wasn’t the story of one murder. It was the story of three.

A 19-year-old gang member who, in a span of just four months, left a trail of bodies across Oklahoma City. Two of those killings happened on the same day, carried out against people who had done nothing wrong. People who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Michael Dewayne Smith, known on the streets as “Hoover Killer” or “HK,” was a member of the Oak Grove Posse, a violent subset of the Oklahoma City Crips. And by the time he was finally caught, the damage was already done.

Early Life and the Making of a Gang Member

Michael Dewayne Smith was born on June 24th, 1982, in Oklahoma. But from the very start, the odds were stacked against him. He grew up in a neighborhood where gang violence and drug activity weren’t just common—they were everywhere. His father was an alcoholic who was physically abusive toward his mother. By the time Michael was two years old, his parents had separated, and his world began to fracture.

With no stable father figure, Michael was raised in chaos. His older brothers introduced him to drugs and gangs at an early age. School became an afterthought. He struggled academically and never found his footing. And somewhere between the ages of seven and eight, Michael was sexually abused by an older woman—a trauma that would go unaddressed for years.

By the time he was 10, Michael lost his father entirely. The absence left a hole that nothing seemed to fill. He turned to PCP, a powerful hallucinogen that would become his escape. And by the year 2000, at just 18 years old, Michael had officially joined the Oak Grove Posse. Years later, in a phone interview before his execution, Michael reflected on his choices with regret. He said he had always been good at sports, that he could have easily gotten a scholarship, but surrounded by gang members and trapped in a culture of violence, he made a different choice. One he called the biggest regret of his life.

By 2002, Michael wasn’t just a gang member. He was already wanted on five separate felony charges, including shooting with intent to kill, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault on a police officer, attempting to elude police, and driving under the influence. He was 19 years old, and he was spiraling.

A Chain Reaction of Violence

To understand what Michael did, you first have to understand what happened on November 8th, 2000. That day, three members of the Oak Grove Posse set out to rob two convenience stores in South Oklahoma City. Their names were Terron “Tok” Armstrong, Kenneth “Peanut” Kinchion, and Dwayne “Pudgy” O. Shirley. The first robbery went off without a hitch. They hit Coker’s Corner on South Kentucky Street around 10:00 in the morning, with Kinchion carrying the gun.

But the second robbery, just after 8:00 that evening, ended in disaster. They walked into Trans Food Mart on South May Avenue. This time, Armstrong was carrying the weapon, but the store’s owner, a Vietnamese man named Han Van Ho, wasn’t about to be a victim. When Armstrong threatened him with the gun, Han Van Ho pulled a .38 caliber revolver from beneath the counter and shot him dead. Kinchion and Shirley fled the scene. They were eventually arrested and charged with felony murder and robbery. Han Van Ho was never charged; his actions were ruled justified self-defense.

Michael wasn’t involved in the robbery, but Terron Armstrong had been one of his closest friends. And when Michael read a newspaper article about the incident, something inside him snapped. According to the article, someone connected to a neighboring store, the A-Z Food Mart, had made comments to the press. Comments that Michael believed were disrespectful to his gang. Comments that, in his mind, disrespected Terron Armstrong’s memory. Michael decided someone had to pay.

Two weeks after Armstrong’s death, on November 24th, 2001, Michael made his first move. He was with his 29-year-old accomplice, David Walter Burns, along with two other men, Melvin Moore, and 26-year-old Otis Payne Jr. The four of them were inside an SUV parked outside the Lexus Club, a nightclub in northeast Oklahoma City. What started as a night out quickly turned violent. An altercation broke out inside the vehicle. Michael handed his gun to Burns, and then both men opened fire. The shots were meant for Melvin Moore, but the fatal bullet struck Otis Payne instead. He was killed instantly. Moore survived with a gunshot wound to his shoulder.

Michael and Burns fled the scene. Police identified them quickly and issued warrants for their arrest, but Michael had no intention of turning himself in. Instead, he went into hiding, moving through Oklahoma City like a ghost, evading capture while the pressure mounted. For three months, he stayed one step ahead of the law. But the longer he hid, the more paranoid he became. And on February 22nd, 2002, that paranoia would explode into violence.

The Murders of Janet Moore and Sarath Babu Puluru

It was just after 6:30 in the morning on February 22nd, 2002. Michael left his apartment at the Delmar complex in Oklahoma City. His roommate, Marcus Barry, watched him grab a .357 caliber revolver before walking out the door. Michael had a target in mind—a man named Phillip Zachary Jr. Michael believed that Zachary had been feeding information to the police, that he was the reason the cops were closing in. In Michael’s mind, Zachary was a snitch, and snitches had to be dealt with.

But when Michael arrived at the apartment where Zachary lived, he didn’t find him. Instead, he found Zachary’s mother. Her name was Janet Denise Miller Moore. She was 41 years old. A loving mother, a dedicated hospital worker in the insurance division at OU Medical Center. Her family would later describe her as a rock, someone who was always willing to lend a hand, an ear, or a kind word to anyone who needed it.

That morning, Janet was alone in the apartment, getting dressed for work. She had no idea that a wanted killer was about to kick down her front door. Michael burst inside. Janet screamed. She called out for help, panicked and terrified, but there was no one to hear her. Later, in his confession, Michael described what happened next with chilling indifference. He said she panicked, that she wouldn’t stop screaming, and so he shot her once in the chest. Janet collapsed. She was dead before she hit the floor. Michael didn’t run. Instead, he walked through the apartment, wiping down every surface, removing his fingerprints. When he later learned who the woman was—the mother of the man he had come to kill—he simply shrugged and said, “Oh well.”

Arrest and Confession

Then he started talking. That same night, Michael returned to his apartment and told his roommate, Marcus Barry, exactly what he had done. He admitted to killing Janet Moore. A few hours later, he went to the home of a female acquaintance, 20-year-old Sheena Johnson. And once again, he couldn’t keep quiet. Michael told Sheena that he had gone to Janet Moore’s apartment looking for her son, the one he believed was a snitch. When he found Janet instead, she started screaming. In Michael’s own words, “The [__] wouldn’t shut up, so he shot her.”

Then he told Sheena about the second killing. He said he had murdered a man at the [__] store because someone there had been on television dissing his set. He described in detail how he had set the body and the cash register on fire. What Michael didn’t know was that none of those details about the fire had been made public yet. The police hadn’t even connected the two murders at that point. Sheena now knew things that only the killer could know, and eventually, she would tell the police everything.

Two days later, on February 24th, 2002, police finally caught up with Michael, but not for the double murder. They arrested him for the killing of Otis Payne Jr., the nightclub shooting from three months earlier. Michael was brought in for questioning. And at first, that’s all detectives wanted to talk about. But during the interrogation, something changed. Detectives Janet McNutt and Teresa Sterling began asking Michael about the murders of Janet Moore and Sarath Puluru.

At first, Michael denied everything, but as the hours passed, something cracked. He broke down. And on videotape, Michael Dewayne Smith confessed to both killings. He told detectives that he had killed both victims in retaliation for wrongs done to him and his family. He explained how he had gone to Janet Moore’s apartment looking for her son, how she had panicked and started screaming, and how he had shot her to make her stop. He described how he had gone to the A-Z Food Mart to avenge Terron Armstrong. How he believed the store clerk had insulted his gang, how he had emptied two guns into Sarath Puluru’s body, doused him in lighter fluid, and set him on fire. He admitted to wiping down Janet’s apartment to remove fingerprints. He admitted to disposing of his clothes. He admitted to setting fires to destroy evidence. The confession was detailed, coherent, and devastating, and it was all captured on video.

The Trials and Sentencing

In March 2002, Michael was formally charged with three counts of first-degree murder, along with burglary, robbery with firearms, and arson. Michael’s trial for the murders of Janet Moore and Sarath Puluru began on June 6th, 2003, in Oklahoma County. But procedural errors led the judge to declare a mistrial. A second trial began on August 28th, 2003. This time, there would be no mistakes.

The prosecution’s case was overwhelming. Sheena Johnson took the stand and recounted everything Michael had told her—details that only the killer could have known. Marcus Barry testified that Michael had confessed to killing Janet Moore. And then the jury watched the videotaped confession, hearing Michael describe the murders in his own words. The defense argued that Michael had been high on PCP when he confessed, that his statements were involuntary and unreliable. But the trial court disagreed. Investigators who had questioned Michael described him as very cocky and extremely verbal. They said he was animated, not disoriented, that he understood exactly what he was saying and the consequences of his actions.

On September 11th, 2003, the jury returned their verdict: Guilty on both counts of first-degree murder. Guilty of robbery by firearm. Guilty of burglary. Guilty of arson. Nine days later, the same jury of nine women and three men recommended the death penalty for each murder conviction, along with 85 years in prison for the lesser charges.

On October 14th, 2003, Oklahoma County District Judge Twyla Mason Gray made it official. She sentenced Michael Dewayne Smith to death. As she handed down the sentence, Judge Gray spoke directly about the victims. She called them hard-working individuals who did not deserve to be murdered. She said the death penalty was appropriate given the brutality of the crimes. Janet Moore’s son, Phillip Zachary Jr., the man Michael had originally been hunting, addressed the court. He said justice had been served for his mother.

In March 2004, Michael returned to court to face charges for the murder of Otis Payne Jr., the nightclub shooting from November 2001. After a five-day trial, the jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, with the sentence ordered to run consecutively with his two death sentences. Michael’s accomplice in that killing, David Burns, was also held accountable. Burns was sentenced to 25 years for second-degree murder and an additional 5 years for firearm possession. At 21 years old, Michael Dewayne Smith had been convicted of three murders. He would spend the next two decades on death row.

Two Decades of Appeals

For more than two decades, Michael fought to stay alive. His attorneys filed appeal after appeal, raising claims of intellectual disability, involuntary confession, and ineffective legal counsel. In 2007, his first appeal was denied. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his conviction and death sentence. In 2016, his case reached federal court. His lawyers argued that Michael’s IQ scores, which ranged from 71 to 79, indicated intellectual disability that should make him ineligible for execution. But the court disagreed. The scores fell just above the legal threshold.

By March 2017, Michael had exhausted all avenues of appeal. He became eligible for execution, though no date had been set. But even on death row, Michael couldn’t stay out of trouble. According to prosecutors, he remained in contact with gang members both inside and outside the prison. As recently as 2019, he was caught with weapons in his cell. The state argued that he remained a continuing threat to society, a lingering menace who had never truly changed.

In August 2022, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals issued death warrants for 25 inmates. Michael was on the list. His execution was originally scheduled for July 6th, 2023, but was later rescheduled to April 4th, 2024.

The Final Clemency Hearing

On March 6th, 2024, one month before his scheduled execution, Michael appeared before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board via video call. For 15 minutes, he pleaded for his life. He expressed his deepest apologies and sorrows to the families of his victims. But then he did something that would doom his chances. He maintained his innocence. “I didn’t commit these crimes,” Michael said, tears streaming down his face. “I didn’t kill these people. I was high on drugs. I don’t even remember getting arrested.”

His attorney, Mark Henricksen, argued that Michael was intellectually disabled, that years of drug abuse had worsened his condition, and that his confession had been made in a PCP-induced haze. He pointed to new evidence suggesting that trial witnesses had been coerced. But the prosecution wasn’t buying it. They reminded the board of Michael’s detailed, videotaped confession. They played clips of him describing the murders in graphic detail. They pointed out that he had confessed not just to police, but to Sheena Johnson and Marcus Barry as well—people who had no reason to lie.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond was blunt. He called Michael a ruthless killer who has confessed to his crimes on multiple occasions. He noted that Michael was among just 10% of death row inmates nationwide who had killed multiple victims.

The families of Janet Moore and Sarath Puluru were present at the hearing. They asked the board to deny clemency. Sarath’s brother, Harish Puluru, had submitted a written statement. He described how Sarath had been the first in their family to come to America. How he had inspired Harish to become a doctor. How, as a child in India, Harish would wait in a phone booth just to receive Sarath’s calls from the United States. He described the pain his parents lived with every day. And he asked the board to let justice be served. The board voted 4 to 1. Clemency was denied.

The Execution

In the days leading up to his execution, Michael made one last attempt to save his life. His attorneys filed emergency appeals with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. They were denied four times. On the morning of April 4th, 2024, just hours before he was scheduled to die, Michael’s lawyers made a final plea to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that his confession had not been sufficiently corroborated. The Supreme Court denied the stay. The execution would proceed.

The night before, Michael was offered a last meal. He declined. He didn’t want anything. As the hour approached, Reverend Jeff Hood, Michael’s spiritual adviser, joined him in the execution chamber. Hood would later say that Michael was tearful in those final minutes, struggling with the weight of what was about to happen.

At 10:08 a.m. on April 4th, 2024, the execution process began at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Michael lay strapped to the gurney. When the execution team leader asked if he had any final words, Michael’s response was brief: “Nah, I’m good.” He then turned to Reverend Hood and spoke quietly. His microphone was off, so the media witnesses couldn’t hear what he said, but prison officials later revealed that Michael was expressing his love for his family.

At 10:09 a.m., the first drug was administered, a sedative called Midazolam. Michael’s body reacted almost immediately. Witnesses saw him shake briefly and attempt to lift his head from the gurney before relaxing. Then came a series of short, audible breaths—sounds that resembled snores or gasps. Prison officials would later say Michael appeared to have some form of sleep apnea.

At 10:14 a.m., a masked doctor entered the chamber. He shook Michael several times and declared him unconscious. About a minute later, Michael appeared to stop breathing. At 10:19 a.m., the doctor returned to check for a pulse. At 10:20 a.m., Michael Dewayne Smith was pronounced dead. He was 41 years old.

Reverend Hood, who had stood beside Michael throughout, later described the moment. He said a single tear fell from Michael’s right eye after he appeared to be gone. Hood called the execution unnecessary. He said Oklahoma would be no safer that afternoon than it had been that morning. The only difference, he said, was that the state would be less ethical.

Aftermath and Reactions

In the witness room, Janet Moore’s son, Phillip Zachary Jr., and her niece, Morgan Miller Perkins, watched through one-way glass. For 22 years, they had waited for this moment. After the execution, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond read statements on behalf of the victims’ families.

Janet Moore’s family offered a prayer of gratitude. They thanked the state for pursuing justice over the past two decades. They honored Janet as a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, and an angel. They said her memory, her work, and her deeds would continue to live on, and they declared that justice had been served.

Sarath Puluru’s family spoke of the devastation his death had caused. They called Sarath the life of their family, a close-knit group shattered by his violent murder. They said he would forever live in their hearts, and they too expressed gratitude that justice had finally come.

Drummond himself offered a reflection on the victims. He called Janet a rock for her family. He described Sarath as a bright young man with a generous spirit, the first in his family to come to America in pursuit of education. He noted the cruel irony of their deaths: neither had done anything wrong, and neither had been Michael’s intended target. Janet and Sarath were murdered simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Drummond said, “That was all. I am grateful that justice has been served.”

Not everyone agreed that justice had been done. Reverend Don Heath, chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, offered a different perspective. He described Michael as a troubled and vulnerable young man with intellectual disabilities, someone who had been failed by the system at every turn. “Michael Smith has a painful story,” Heath said. “A 10-year-old boy with borderline intellectual disability loses his father, gets strung out habitually on PCP, and joins a gang with tragic results when he is 19. We all stand in need of mercy, and Smith has gotten precious little.”

Heath criticized Michael’s legal advisers, saying they had ill-served him by encouraging him to proclaim his innocence instead of accepting responsibility. That decision, Heath said, had cost Michael any chance at clemency. He had needed mercy and forgiveness, and he had gotten none.

Michael Dewayne Smith was the first person executed in Oklahoma in 2024. He was the 12th person put to death since the state resumed executions in 2021, ending a six-year moratorium that had followed a series of botched lethal injections. And he was the fourth person executed in the United States that year.

His story is one of violence, of loss, and of choices that can never be undone. Three people—Otis Payne, Janet Moore, and Sarath Puluru—are gone forever. Their families will carry that grief for the rest of their lives. And Michael Dewayne Smith, the boy who once dreamed of sports scholarships but chose a different path, paid the ultimate price.

What do you think? Has justice been served? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.