State Of Oklahoma To Execute Death Row Inmate Richard Fairchild For Killing 3-Year-Old In 1993

The State of Oklahoma will execute an Oklahoma County man on Thursday morning for killing his girlfriend's three-year-old son in Del City in 1993.

Richard Fairchild has been on death row for 26 years and was denied clemency in October. Prosecutors say Fairchild beat, burned, and then threw three-year-old Adam Broomhall. According to prosecutors, Fairchild and the boy's mother had been drinking all day when the little boy woke up crying. They say that's when Fairchild beat the boy, burned both sides of his body by pressing him against a furnace, then threw the boy into a dining room table, which knocked the child unconscious.

Investigators say the boy suffered four to six blows to the head and 26 blows to the body.

Attorneys for Fairchild argue that he suffers from mental illness because of numerous traumas to his brain throughout his life. They say he grew up in an abusive home and suffered head injuries from being an amateur boxer. They say that trauma has led to organic brain syndrome.

Fairchild is set to be executed at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning.

Fairchild will be the fifth death row prisoner executed by Oklahoma in 2022 and one of 25 scheduled to be executed by the end of 2024.