Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Mississippi sets an execution date for a man who's been on death row since 1976

The Mississippi Supreme Court has scheduled the execution for the state's longest-serving death row inmate for June 25

Sophie Bates
Thursday 01 May 2025 23:59 BST
Execution Set
Execution Set

Mississippi's longest-serving death row inmate is set to be executed on June 25, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Richard Gerald Jordan, 78, who was sentenced to death in 1976 for kidnapping and killing a woman, has filed multiple death sentence appeals, the most recent of which was denied in October.

The Mississippi ruling comes on the same day Army Combat veteran Jeffrey Hutchinson was scheduled to be executed in Florida. Before Thursday, 14 people had been executed in the U.S., including three in Florida.

The order did not specify the manner in which Jordan will be executed. Mississippi law allows death sentences to be carried out using lethal injection, nitrogen gas, electrocution or firing squad.

According to Mississippi Supreme Court records, Jordan kidnapped Edwina Marter in January 1976 and shot her to death in a forest in Harrison County. He then called her husband, Charles Marter, falsely claimed she was safe and asked for $25,000.

Records show that before the killing Jordan had traveled from Louisiana to Gulfport, Mississippi and called the Gulf National Bank, where Charles Marter worked as a loan officer. After he was told Marter could speak with him, he hung up, looked up the Marters' home address and went to the house posing as an electric company employee.

“After due consideration, the Court finds Jordan has exhausted all state and federal remedies for purposes of setting an execution,” the ruling read.

Mississippi's last execution was in December 2022.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in