A Pious Performance
On the evening of January 9, 2007, 38-year old Corey Duane Hamilton died in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was executed for the August 17, 1992 massacre of four young people; Joseph Gooch, Theodore Kindley, Steven Williams and Senaida Lara, during a robbery at the Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken Restaurant on South Sheridan Road, in Tulsa.
On that summer’s night fourteen years ago, Hamilton was evil personified as he, his brother William and Donnie Eugene Daniels herded the victims into a walk-in refrigerator and forced them to kneel and Corey Duane Hamilton executed each with a bullet to the back of the head while get-away driver Tyrone Lamont Johnson waited in the car.
On the night of his execution Corey Duane Hamilton was still evil personified as he made his self-serving final statement.
I wish everyone could experience the love of God to the degree I have experienced. I love everybody, and I hope to see you on the other side..
In spite of Hamilton’s pious performance, the fact remains that he did not admit any part in the massacre or even the robbery. His only acknowledgment that a crime was even committed was in a pathetic statement he directed to the victims’ families, seated behind one-way glass.
To the victims’ family, I pray that you have peace and all that you’re in need of.
For over fourteen years after massacring his victims, the youngest only seventeen and the oldest only twenty-seven, Corey Duane Hamilton lived and at any time could have apologized to the families of the victims, admitted his terrible crimes or simply said, “I’m sorry”.
That Hamilton chose to do none of these things, coupled with the fact that not a single member of Hamilton’s family saw fit to witness his passing, says much about Corey Duane Hamilton and his pious last minute performance.
As Hamilton met his end, it was a quiet and peaceful passing. One in which he simply went to sleep to never awake.
His was a far more humane passing than that which he imposed upon four innocent young victims on a terror filled summer night back in 1992…
