Facing June execution, death row inmate seeks mercy for kidnapping, killing Oklahoma woman

OKLAHOMA CITY – Twenty-five years have passed since Mary Agnes Bowles was abducted from a Tulsa mall in her car, driven to a remote area and shot four to six times.

The 77-year-old retired bank executive had just left her shift volunteering at St. Francis Hospital.

Her partially decomposed and animal-scavenged body was found about a week later in an isolated dirt pit near Owasso.

On May 7, Bowles’ convicted killer George John Hanson will ask the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board for clemency after twice receiving the death sentence.

He is set to die June 12 by lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

“This murderer’s execution has been delayed for far too long,” said Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. “I am committed to ensuring that the Bowles family finally sees that justice is done for their loved one.”

Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, was transferred at Drummond’s request last month from a Louisiana federal prison where he was serving time for an unrelated offense.

Hanson’s attorneys are expected to argue that his death sentence was unfair because Victor Miller, his co-defendant, got life without parole and allegedly fired the shots that killed Bowles. 

Prior to Bowles’ murder, Miller shot Jerald Thurman, the owner of the dirt pit, who had seen them, according to the state’s clemency packet.

Thurman later died of his wounds.  

The state, in its clemency packet, said Miller entered a plea after his second direct appeal to avoid the death penalty, something which should have no bearing on Hanson’s case.

“The most just result in this case would be for both men to be executed,” according to the state’s clemency packet.

In addition, Hanson was diagnosed at 52 with Autism Spectrum Disorder “following a lifetime of symptoms and struggles,” according to his clemency packet.

His attorneys are asking the board to recommend that Gov. Kevin Stitt commute his death sentence to life without the possibility of parole.

“John will never be a free man,” his attorneys wrote in his clemency packet. “He has much to offer young men who enter state and/or federal systems and can direct them down a different path.”