Steven Oken

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Steven Howard Oken
Born January 22, 1962
Died June 17, 2004 (aged 42)
Baltimore, Maryland
Penalty Death by lethal injection
Status Executed

Steven Howard Oken (January 22, 1962 – June 17, 2004) was an American murderer who was executed in Maryland by lethal injection in 2004.

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[edit] The crimes

On November 1, 1987, Steven Oken, then 25, murdered Dawn Marie Garvin. She was found by her father on the bed in her apartment, naked, with a bottle protruding from her vagina, and blood streaming from her forehead. Despite efforts of her father and paramedics to administer CPR, she was dead. An autopsy later revealed that she had died as the result of two contact gunshot wounds; one of the bullets entered at her left eyebrow and the other at her right ear.

Less than two weeks after Oken murdered Dawn Garvin, he sexually assaulted and murdered his sister-in-law, Patricia Hirt, at his Maryland home. He then fled to Maine, where he murdered Lori Ward, the desk clerk at the hotel in which he was staying. He was arrested in Maine on November 17, 1987 and was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life without parole in Maine for first-degree murder. Oken was then returned to Maryland where he faced separate prosecutions for charges arising out of the other two murders.

[edit] Trial and execution

Oken was found guilty and sentenced to die for the killing of Dawn Garvin on January 18, 1991. Following his conviction for Garvin's murder Oken pled guilty to killing Patricia Hirt, and received an additional life sentence. On June 17, 2004, Steven Oken was executed by lethal injection at the Metropolitan Transition Center in Baltimore at age 42. His last meal was a chicken patty, with potatoes and gravy, green beans, marble cake, milk, and fruit punch – the regular prison meal that day.

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