May 19, Execution vigil 5:30 – 6:30 pm 11th & Congress (in front of Capitol)
“I know I hurt you very bad,” Michael Lynn Riley said to his victim’s relatives, including her two daughters and husband. “I want you to know I’m sorry. I hope one day you can move on and, if not, I understand.”
Brandy Oaks said she accepted Riley’s apology and was pleased to hear it. She was 4 when her mother, Wynona Harris, was killed.
“This is a difficult day and there are no winners on either side,” she said. “Her spirit will live on in our hearts and in our lives.
“I think being here was something I needed. It’s the last chapter in the book. I can close it. It’s over for me, emotionally, I guess.”
“It’s strange, it’s almost like I never had her to begin with,” her sister, Jennifer Bevill, said about losing her mother when she was 1 1/2.
She said she had to pray “for forgiveness and love and mercy — forgiveness for this person that has done this to your family.”
“In the long run, Jesus Crhist is our shoulder to cry on when you don’t have anybody,” Bevill said.
Riley, 51, also apologized to his mother, who was not present, for being “not the big son that you wanted me to be.” Then he reminded friends who were watching that for years he has said he was ready to die.
“To the fellows on the row: stay strong. Fleetwood is out of here,” he said, referring to his death row nickname.
Eight minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow, he was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.,