McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty to the 1997 shooting deaths of his wife and two daughters was executed Tuesday.
Ronald Dunaway Fluke, 52, was killed with a dose of drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
In Missouri, Tomas Ervin was executed early Wednesday for the 1988 murders of a 75-year-old woman and her son.
Fluke pleaded guilty in 1998 in the murders of his wife, 44-year-old Ginger Lou Fluke, and their daughters, Kathryn, 11, and Susanne, 13.
A compulsive gambler, Fluke had said he wanted to spare his wife and daughters the embarrassment of what he viewed as his impending financial doom.
He was the 123rd inmate executed in Oklahoma since statehood and the 10th this year.
Over objections of public defenders, the former safety consultant was deemed mentally competent to plead guilty and not fight his death sentence.
"I don't have a death wish, but I did a terrible thing and I feel sorry for what I did and I'm ready to pay the price," Fluke told a judge.
A court-appointed psychiatrist said in an evaluation of Fluke that he reasoned his family would be happier in heaven, where Fluke was certain they would go after death.
Ervin, 50, became the second man executed in Missouri this year and the 48th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1989.