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Killer in 3-state rampage faces execution Tuesday

Department of Corrections

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing an Oklahoma woman in 1999 in one of three homicides in three states is to be executed.

Steven Ray Thacker is to be put to death at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for the December 1999 killing of Laci Dawn Hill in Mayes County.

Thacker — who waived his clemency hearing — would be the first person executed in Oklahoma this year.

Prosecutors say Thacker killed Hill after answering a newspaper ad she and her husband had placed to sell a pool table — and later killed Forrest Boyd in Missouri and Ray Patterson in Tennessee in the 10 days after Hill's slaying.

Thacker also faces a death penalty in Tennessee and life in prison in Missouri.