Inmate moves closer to execution after Oklahoma board denies clemency request

OKLAHOMA CITY – A death row inmate on Wednesday told the Pardon and Parole Board he was guilty of falling in love, but not murder.

James Pavatt said he was so blinded by love that he didn’t realize he was being manipulated. He said he was convinced someone else would be arrested for killing the woman’s husband even after the pair fled to Mexico together. 

“I was so infatuated with her that I lost sight of what was really happening,” James Pavatt, 72, said. “I had tunnel vision. I believed everything that she told me.”

He urged the Pardon and Parole Board on Wednesday to recommend clemency because he did not kill Rob Andrew. 

The Board voted 2-3 against clemency, clearing the way for Pavatt’s Nov. 12 execution by lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

Pavatt and Brenda Andrew, 62, were both sentenced to death for the 2001 killing of advertising executive Rob Andrew as he attempted to pick up his two children for a holiday visit.

Pavatt and Brenda Andrew were having an affair while she was going through a divorce from Rob Andrew. The Andrews had two children. Prosecutors allege a $800,000 life insurance policy played a role in the motive.

Brenda Andrew is appealing.

After the murder, Brenda Andrew and Pavatt fled to Mexico.

Pavatt said that Brenda Andrew threatened to kill herself when he told her an attorney said the couple was likely to be arrested.

“I could not let that happen, so we packed up and headed to Mexico,” Pavatt said. “I knew this made us look guilty, but I believed whoever killed Rob would be arrested, and that once that happened, we could come back.”

He said it wasn’t until his trial that he realized the extent of Brenda Andrew’s manipulation of him.

“I am not guilty of Rob’s murder,” he said.

His attorney, Hunter Labovitz, said there was no credible evidence that Pavatt shot Rob Andrew or even was at the scene.

He said prosecutors threw the truth in the trash.

But Jennifer Crabb, assistant attorney general, said substantial evidence ties Pavatt to the crime.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said Pavatt planned the murder “coldly and methodically.”

Crabb said there was no prosecutorial misconduct in the case.

Crabb said Rob Andrew’s family was not present at the clemency hearing.

“They do not wish to relive the terrible pain of Rob’s murder,” she said. “They are not opposed to James Pavatt’s execution, and they trust that the system reached the correct result.”  

Board members Susan Stava and Robert Reavis II voted for clemency, while Richard Miller, Sean Malloy and Kevin Buchanan voted against it.

Had the board voted for clemency, Gov. Kevin Stitt would have made the final decision.