Oklahoma court upholds life prison sentence in woman's death


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: Less than a minute

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the life prison sentence of a 25-year-old man convicted of dropping a cinder block on a woman's head to "put her out of her misery" after he had slashed her with a machete.

The court handed down the decision Thursday for Joshua Andrew Reynolds, who was convicted of first-degree murder by a Tulsa County jury in the May 2013 death of 20-year-old Melissa Ann Lemery of Broken Arrow.

Investigators said Lemery's body had lacerations to the arms and blunt force trauma to the face.

Among other things, Reynolds claimed he was denied a fair trial because jurors heard improper testimony and prosecutors committed misconduct during their closing argument. Defense attorney Kristi Christopher did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Most recent U.S. stories

Related topics

U.S.
The Associated Press

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast