Jake Thurman has been waiting for decades for one of the men involved in his father’s killing to be executed.
John Fitzgerald Hanson had been serving time in federal prisons in Louisiana for bank robbery. The federal government denied Hanson’s transfer to Oklahoma in 2022, even though his execution was scheduled.
Thurman said the delay was devastating, but it took an even bigger toll on his mother, who died from organ failure less than two months later.
Now Thurman feels like justice is finally coming, but he wishes it hadn’t taken so long.
“It brings back a lot of the raw emotions,” Thurman said.It feels like the justice system really needs an overhaul for these cases and these victims. We’re almost three decades into this.”
The week Donald Trump was sworn into office, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked again for Hanson’s transfer. This time, U. S. Attorney General Pam Bondi approved the request.
Hanson, 60, was convicted and sentenced to death in Tulsa County for kidnapping Mary Bowles from a Tulsa shopping mall and killing her in 1999. Hanson’s accomplice, Victor Cornell Miller, shot Jake’s father, Jerald Thurman, who spotted the kidnappers in Bowles’ car.
According to court documents, Hanson and Miller had been involved in a string of robberies before and after the murders. When the men abducted Bowles, they intended to use her car in another robbery. Miller drove her to an isolated area in Owasso.
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After saying goodbye to his wife and son on Aug. 31, 1999, Jerald Thurman, a dump truck driver, drove to work at a dirt pit he owned. Jerald Thurman typically carried a nine-millimeter pistol with him, but on this day, he left it sitting on his kitchen counter, his son said. As he was loading his dump truck for a delivery, he noticed an unfamiliar car on his property. He called his nephew to report what he saw, according to court records. After Jerald Thurman ended the call, Miller shot Thurman four times, according to court documents.
Neighbors heard the gunshots and found Thurman lying next to the dump truck. He died in a local hospital from his injuries two weeks later.
Bowles has few living relatives. Attempts to contact Sara Mooney, a niece who lives in Texas, were unsuccessful. Mooney wrote a statement that was filed in federal court in February, supporting Hanson’s transfer back to Oklahoma for execution.
Mooney wrote that Bowles’ death was devastating to their family.
“Mary’s murder was indescribably difficult then, and it still is now. We have been worn out by the multiple trials, re-trials, and appeals,” Mooney wrote. “We find ourselves disappointed and angry with the machinations of the judicial system, and the political aspects of the last year. We are ready to be done with this matter. It has been over 25 years of drama.”
Eight days after killing Bowles and Thurman, the two men walked into a Tulsa Federal Employees Credit Union in September 1999 and slipped the bank teller robbery notes, according to court documents. One of the men flashed a gun. The bank robbery would later land Hanson in federal prison instead of Oklahoma’s death row.
Miller was initially sentenced to death for Thurman’s murder. But he was later re-sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Jake Thurman said he felt a lack of closure after Miller’s death sentence was overturned. But he was thankful the court proceedings were over.
He forgives Miller and Hanson, but it’s been difficult without his dad, who he described as his hero and friend.
“My kids do look a lot like my dad, so I get to wake up and see my dad, but in a different way,” he said.
Long awaited justice
Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler described Hanson as a career criminal. Kunzweiler said it appeared “his death sentence was politicized to the point of interrupting the process.”
According to a letter from the Bureau of Prisons to Kunzweiler in 2022, it wasn’t in the public’s “best interest” to transfer Hanson.
Kunzweiler said Hanson’s transfer was long overdue, and he’s glad it finally happened.
“The reality was he was going to die an old man in the comforts of a federal prison, as opposed to allowing a state to be able to render its judgment where he deserved to die,” Kunzweiler said.
The state Attorney General’s Office has asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to set Hanson’s execution date on or after June 12.
Hanson’s legal team has asked to hold off on setting an execution date while a lawsuit challenging his execution date works its way through federal court.
A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office said Hanson has exhausted all his appeals and the federal lawsuit is not “an impediment to setting an execution date.”
Jake Thurman said he plans to continue going to all the legal proceedings and honoring his father’s legacy through their family business and his sons.
He said he’s looking forward to it being over.
“Everybody loses in an execution case. His family, our family, everybody’s lost something. So it’s tough either way,” Thurman said.
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