CEDAR CITY -- A man convicted in a 1984 triple murder in Cedar City was executed in Oklahoma early Thursday for another crime.
Norman Lee Newsted was killed by injection at 12:12 a.m. for the 1984 slaying of Larry Donnell Buckley, 26, a Tulsa cab driver who picked up Newsted from the Tulsa International Airport.Newsted and Douglas Edward Kay were convicted in the 1984 murders that happened Valentine's Day at the Playhouse bar in Cedar City.
Barmaid Patricia Frei, 23, from Santa Clara, and customers Robert Bull, 33, Cedar City, and Ronald B. Schmid, 24, Idaho Falls, were killed in the robbery-slaying.
Schmid's brother said the execution will "stop (Newsted) from killing somebody else."
"It'll stop him from putting other families through the same stuff that we went through," Schmid told reporters.
Cedar City Police Sgt. Roy Houchen said the execution helps brings a sense of closure for him and other officers who worked on the case.
The case eventually broke with the discovery of Kay in a Las Vegas motel. A security guard, called to the room after Kay's girlfriend threw a table through a window, recognized the man from a wanted flier.
Newsted had stolen some cash from Kay and taken a taxi cab ride to California where he flew to Tulsa. He killed Buckley when he could not pay for the cab ride, Houchen said.
Kay eventually pleaded guilty to the Cedar City slayings and remains at the Utah State Prison in Draper. In a 1994 interview, Kay said he killed Frei and Schmid after Newsted had shot Bull. Houchen believes both men shot all three victims, adding Newsted probably shot them first but Kay went after him and shot them again because he had a bigger gun and wanted to make sure they were dead.