McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma has executed a man who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her 7-month-old daughter nearly 20 years ago.
Raymond Johnson, 52, was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. Thursday following a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, prison officials said.
He was sentenced to death for killing 24-year-old Brooke Whitaker and her 7-month-old daughter, Kya, in June 2007.
Prosecutors said Johnson and Whitaker had been arguing at her home in Tulsa before he repeatedly hit her over the head with a metal claw hammer. Whitaker’s skull was fractured and she had more than 20 lacerations on her face and scalp. But she was still conscious and begged Johnson to spare her and Kya, who was sleeping in a bedroom, prosecutors said in documents prepared for Johnson’s clemency hearing in April.
“She begged him to call 911. She begged him to let her mom come get baby Kya. She begged him to think of her children,” the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said. Whitaker had three other children.
Johnson retrieved a gas can from a tool shed in the backyard, doused Whitaker and the house with gasoline, lit a dish towel on fire, threw it at Whitaker and left, the attorney general’s office said. Whitaker died from head injuries and smoke inhalation while her daughter died from severe burns.
“Raymond Johnson is a cruel murderer who inflicted unimaginable pain and suffering on his victims,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement.
Johnson’s attorneys did not file a last-minute appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution.
His attorneys unsuccessfully argued in earlier appeals that Johnson’s arrest was illegal, police coerced his confession from him and that his trial lawyer conceded his guilt in Whitaker’s death without his permission.
In April, Oklahoma’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board voted unanimously to deny Johnson clemency. During that clemency hearing, Johnson apologized to the victims’ family and asked for forgiveness, saying he was a changed person.
“I apologize. No excuses, no justifications, a sincere apology. And to know that it’s sincere, look at my actions. Look at my life. Look how I’ve changed. I’m living a remorseful life. I’m living it,” Johnson said in an interview with Death Penalty Action, a national anti-death penalty group.
Whitaker’s family members asked for the lethal injection to proceed.
“Executing him will not give me my mom or sister back, it will not take away almost 20 years of pain. What it will do is finally stop him from continuing to hurt us,” Logan Kleck, Whitaker’s oldest daughter, said in a letter to the board.
In addition to his first-degree murder conviction, Johnson also served nine years of a 20-year sentence after being convicted of manslaughter in 1996.
Johnson was the second person put to death this year in Oklahoma and the 11th in the country.
Lozano reported from Houston. Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70
This image provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Raymond Johnson. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia on Thursday unleashed a third straight day of massive drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, demolishing an apartment building in Kyiv where nine people were killed and dozens injured, authorities said. More strikes elsewhere in the country wounded more than two dozen civilians.
As dawn broke on a clear day in Kyiv, a scene of devastation came into focus in the capital’s leafy Darnytsia neighborhood, located between a suburban forest and the Dnieper River.
Wisps of smoke rose from the collapsed nine-story apartment block, where emergency workers dug under concrete slabs and took people away on stretchers. The building's entrance was smashed in the strike, preventing residents from escaping.
All 18 apartments in the building were destroyed, officials said. Among the dead was a 12-year-old girl, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Nine people were killed, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. About 20 were people believed to be missing.
Klitschko declared Friday to be a day of mourning for the victims.
Ukrainian officials noted that the attack coincided with U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to China. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have sufficient leverage to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his 4-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
“At the very time when leaders of the most powerful countries are meeting in Beijing, and the world hopes for peace, predictability and cooperation, Putin launched hundreds of drones, ballistic and cruise missiles at the capital of Ukraine,” Sybiha wrote on X.
“Only pressure on Moscow can make him stop,” Sybiha said of Putin.
Russia fired ballistic and cruise missiles in the attack, Zelenskyy said, adding that Moscow had launched more than 1,560 drones against Ukrainian population centers since Wednesday. In all, some 180 sites across the country were damaged, including more than 50 residential buildings, he said.
British Defense Secretary John Healey called Thursday's attack “shocking” and said he had accelerated U.K. deliveries of air defenses.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the military aimed at Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, including air bases and fuel and transport facilities, claiming it hit all its targets. Among the weapons deployed, it said, were Kinzhal missiles, which Moscow says can fly 10 times the speed of sound.
Russia has hammered Ukraine with large-scale aerial attacks following a May 9-11 ceasefire that Trump said he asked Zelenskyy and Putin to heed. Fighting continued over those 72 hours, although reportedly at a reduced intensity.
The attacks undercut recent suggestions from Trump and Putin that the war, which began with Moscow's all-out invasion of its neighbor in 2022, is nearing its end.
More than 30 people were injured in the apartment building collapse, while emergency workers rescued 28 residents, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Lyudmila Hlushko, 78, said she heard explosions and the sound of rockets about 3 a.m. “Then the house shook violently and there was a loud bang, breaking the glass in my house,” she told The Associated Press.
The blast shattered windows throughout the neighborhood.
“It was a terrible night,” said another resident, Nadiia Lobanova. “We’re used to this. Well, it’s impossible to get used to this, but somehow we held on.”
Damage was reported in six districts of the capital, Tkachenko said.
The Kyiv office of defense contractor Skyeton, specializing in reconnaissance drones, was destroyed in the overnight attack, although the company said it had anticipated such a development and had relocated its production.
Russian drones also struck a vehicle carrying U.N. staff who were delivering aid to residents of Kherson in southern Ukraine, Sybiha said. The vehicle was marked and was attacked twice, in two different locations, but nobody was hurt, he said.
The Ukrainian cities of Kremenchuk, Bila Tserkva, Kharkiv, Sumy and Odesa also were bombarded, officials said.
“We are now experiencing the largest strikes since the start of the full-scale invasion,” air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne.
Ukraine’s air defense forces are under severe strain, he said. Even so, the interception rate of drones and missiles was over 93%, Zelenskyy said.
Air defenses shot down or jammed 693 Russian targets overnight, including 41 missiles and 652 drones of various types nationwide, the air force said.
Fifteen missiles and 23 drones scored direct hits across 24 locations, it said. Debris from downed drones fell in another 18 locations.
Strikes on energy infrastructure left customers in Kyiv and 11 other regions temporarily without power, national grid operator Ukrenergo said.
On Wednesday, a rare daytime attack on Kyiv killed at least six people, Zelenskyy said. That assault, which involved 800 drones, struck about 20 regions and was among the longest such attacks of the war.
In other developments Thursday:
— The Hungarian government summoned the Russian ambassador over a drone attack near Hungary’s border with Ukraine. The step marked a stark shift in tone by new Prime Minister Péter Magyar toward Moscow after years of cozy relations with the Kremlin under former leader Viktor Orbán.
— Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned after her government’s coalition partner withdrew its support and left her without a majority. The government has been under pressure over its handling of multiple incidents involving stray drones suspected to be from Ukraine crossing into Latvian territory.
Associated Press journalists Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A woman kisses her relative evacuated from a house heavily damaged after a Russian strike on residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A rescue worker evacuates a woman from a balcony of a house heavily damaged after a Russian strike on residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A rescue worker walks on the rubble of a house heavily damaged after a Russian strike on residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A policeman look at a building damaged after a Russian strike on residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Rescue workers clear the rubble of a house heavily damaged after a Russian strike on a residential neighborhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Rescue workers carry an injured woman on a stretcher from a house heavily damaged after a Russian strike on a residential neighborhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at the Bucharest B9 summit held at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
