Unless he changes his mind, today will be Michael Edward Long's last day in prison -- and his last day alive.

The death row inmate, who has waffled during the past year about waiving his appeals, apparently has decided he is ready to die for the 1987 slayings of a female co-worker and her 5-year-old son.

Shortly after midnight tonight, he will get his wish. A combination of lethal drugs will be administered to Long, who has spent the last decade on death row.

"I'm ready to get out of hell and go to heaven," Long said in an interview last week.

Long, 35, would become the 10th Oklahoma killer to die by lethal injection since the state resumed executions in 1990. He has admitted killing Sheryl Sandra Graber, 24, and her son, Andrew, on April 7, 1987, after she refused to have sex with him.

Graber and her killer worked together at a Muskogee floral shop. After a brief confrontation in her home, Graber was shot twice and stabbed 31 times. Her son also was shot and stabbed because he witnessed his mother's slaying.

Long said he is a different man from the one who committed the murders. He said the change started 19 days after the slayings, when a volunteer minister visited him in jail. He professes a conversion to Christianity, but Graber's father doubts the killer's sincerity.

"He's got that jailhouse religion," Ken Rigler said in December after Long was deemed competent to abandon his appeals.

It wasn't the 1st time Rigler had attended a hearing on Long's right to die. The 1st time, in March 1997, the hearing was canceled when Long changed his mind, saying he didn't want "to take the easy way out."

By October, Long had changed his mind again. He asked for an end to his appeals, and on Dec. 3, Muskogee County District Judge Lyle Burris obliged. Long said the "terrible conditions" on death row at Oklahoma State Penitentiary fueled his desire to die now, rather than take his chances with further appeals.

At this point, Attorney General Drew Edmondson said recently, there is no legal way for Long to stop the execution. Not all the experts agree, however.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said there have been other cases in which inmates waived their appeals, then changed their minds after an execution date was set.

He mentioned a Georgia case in which the killer asked to resume his appeals on the eve of his 1994 execution. The courts granted his wish, and he lived for 2 more years until his appeals ran out, Dieter said.

"We've never had one like that before," said Judge Charles Chapel, who sits on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. How the court would handle such a last-day request would depend on the issues Long raised, Chapel said.

Long's attorney, Jeremy Lowrey, also disagrees with Edmondson's statement. Attorneys from the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System have the paperwork ready to seek a stay in case Long changes his mind, Lowrey said.

Long would become the 3rd Oklahoma inmate to be executed after waiving his appeals. The others were Thomas Grasso in 1995 and Scott Carpenter in 1997. He would be the 8th person executed in this country in 1998, and the 440th since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Long's final day's activities won't differ much from his normal routine, prison spokeswoman Lee Mann said.

"He'll have a fairly regular schedule, except he'll have more visits from family and he'll have access to the phone all day," Mann said.

Long has designated 5 witnesses for the execution. Mann would not identify them. However, Lowrey said he will be present.

Some of the victims' relatives also have asked to watch the execution. They will be in a separate room from reporters, law enforcement, prison officials and Long's chosen witnesses.

A Tulsa woman filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma this week because prison officials refused to let her be Long's spiritual adviser in the hours before execution. Jan Skaggs, who has been involved in prison ministry for 8 years, says she was ordained 3 weeks ago in the Universal Life Church, although she is a member of a Baptist church in Florida. She says prison officials rejected her because "Southern Baptists don't ordain women."

Skaggs said Wednesday she plans to be on hand to comfort Long's mother and 2 sisters.

(source: Daily Oklahoman)

Killer Wants Appeals Ended

Thomas Grasso, convicted of killing an elderly Tulsa woman, was another death row inmate who said he wanted to die. Grasso was executed in 1995.