Mississippi’s Longest-Serving Death Row Inmate Set To Be Executed Nearly 50 Years After Ransom Murder

Richard Gerald Jordan

Mississippi’s Longest-Serving Death Row Inmate Set To Be Executed Nearly 50 Years After Ransom Murder

After nearly five decades behind bars, 79-year-old Richard Gerald Jordan is scheduled to be executed today (June 25) for the 1976 kidnapping and murder of Edwina Marter, a wife and mother of two, in what prosecutors described as a violent ransom scheme.

According to court records, Jordan randomly called a Mississippi bank asking to speak with a loan officer. After learning that Charles Marter was available, he hung up, found the Marters’ home address and number, kidnapped Edwina, and demanded $25,000, claiming she was safe, though he had already taken her to a wooded area and fatally shot her.
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Jordan, a Vietnam veteran diagnosed with PTSD, has undergone four trials and spent decades filing legal appeals. His legal team argues that his wartime trauma was never properly presented to the jury.

Still, the victim’s family says justice is long overdue. Edwina’s son Eric Marter, who was 11 at the time, told reporters:

“He needs to be punished… It should have happened a long time ago.”

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Despite a final push for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, and with some appeals still pending, Jordan remains scheduled to die by lethal injection at Mississippi State Penitentiary. He would become the third person executed in the state in the past 10 years.

The Marter family has said they do not plan to attend the execution.

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[VIA]