After nearly five decades on death row, the longest-serving inmate in Mississippi’s history was executed Wednesday, offering a chilling final message to his victim’s family.
Richard Gerald Jordan, 79, was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Edwina Marter, a 37-year-old mother of two, in 1976, The Express detailed. A Vietnam War veteran who reportedly suffered from severe PTSD, he had spent almost half a century navigating a legal maze of appeals, retrials, and constitutional challenges.
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His final words struck a somber tone. “First, I would like to thank everyone for a humane way of doing this,” Jordan said while strapped to the gurney.
Then came his haunting final words to Marter’s family: “I want to apologize to the victim’s family. I will see you on the other side, all of you.”
He was pronounced dead at 6:16PM via lethal injection, a method he once legally challenged as inhumane. His last meal included chicken tenders, French fries, strawberry ice cream, and a root beer float, according to The Washington Post.
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Jordan’s crime was as calculated as it was senseless. In January 1976, he cold-called a bank asking to speak with a loan officer and learned that Charles Marter, Edwina’s husband, was available.
After hanging up, he used a phone book to find their home address, drove there, kidnapped Edwina, and later shot her in a wooded area. He then contacted Charles, falsely claiming she was still alive and demanded $25,000 in ransom.
The Marter family never forgot. Nor did they forgive. “It should have happened a long time ago,” said Eric Marter, Edwina’s son, who was just 11 at the time of the murder. “I’m not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt. He needs to be punished.” The family chose not to attend the execution.
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Jordan’s path to the execution chamber was anything but direct. His legal journey included four separate trials and multiple appeals, many of which focused on claims that his mental health history, particularly his PTSD from Vietnam, was never fairly presented to a jury.
“He was never given what the law entitles, an independent mental health expert to support his defense,” said Krissy Nobile, Jordan’s attorney and director of Mississippi’s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel. “His jury never heard about his war experiences.”
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A petition sent to Governor Tate Reeves asking for clemency highlighted Jordan’s military service and the long-term psychological damage caused by combat, The Guardian detailed. Advocates argued that what we now understand about trauma might have changed the outcome of his case.
“His war trauma was dismissed as irrelevant,” said Franklin Rosenblatt, a former Army prosecutor and president of the National Institute of Military Justice. “Today, we know much more about how trauma impacts behavior. That context was denied in his trial.”
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Still, for the Marter family, the motive behind the crime was clear. “I know what he did,” said Eric Marter. “He wanted money. He couldn’t take her with him, so he did what he did.”
Jordan’s execution marked only the third in Mississippi in the past decade, contrasting with other Southern states like Florida, which has conducted seven executions so far this year.