USA - Oklahoma. Steven Ray Thacker, 42, white, was executed.

Steven Ray Thacker, 42, white, was executed. Thacker was sentenced to death in December 2002 after being convicted of raping and killing 25-year-old Laci Dawn Hill on December 23, 1999. According to prosecutors, Thacker fled Oklahoma and on Jan. 1, 2000 broke into a Missouri home looking for money. Forrest Reed Boyd, 24, arrived at his home mid-theft and was stabbed to death by Thacker, who received a life sentence in that case. Thacker then took Boyd's car and drove to Tennessee, where, on Jan. 2, 2000, he killed Ray Patterson, 52, A Tennessee court sentenced Thacker to death for that murder. Thacker becomes the 1^st inmate executed this year in Oklahoma, the 103rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1990, the 5th to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1325th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.